This Trainer Sings Opera to Her Racehorses to Ensure They Win

Trainer Heather Main, who has experience as an opera singer, says the horses' favorite composer is Mozart.

This trainer is not quite the horse whisperer, but rather, the horse singer.

Heather Main, 49, of Oxfordshire, England, said her key to training a winning racehorse is to sing opera songs to them.

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“My job is to train winners,” Main told Caters News. “To get winners, I have to do everything I can, not just the right feed and the right exercise.”

Main, who originally trained to be an opera singer, said the tactic helps relax the horses as well as keep them entertained.

“I see it as part of their training. Human athletes will take time to relax and listen to music, these horses are athletes too,” she said. "Racing is hard work, it uses a lot of adrenaline and they need time to unwind."

So far, she said Mozart seems to be the music the horses respond best to.

"The horses all prick up their ears," she said. "They come to their doors and bob their heads and if some of them are lying down they will get up to see what's going on."

In fact, four horses she trained using her singing tactic won first place within a month. A fifth horse, Childesplay, took home second place.

"Singing to the horses might sound crazy, but it works and that's all that matters,” said Childesplay’s owner, Andrew Knotts.

Main explained that when she was growing up, she loved to sing: “I was constantly being told to stop singing at the dinner table.”

During her training to be an opera singer, she often daydreamed about racing horses and eventually gave up singing professionally to become a jockey.

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Eventually, she discovered her two loves can be combined, and she and her husband, a veterinarian, opened a training facility for horses.

“We’re the perfect partnership,” she explained. "The singing is just all part of the training as well as the feeding, exercise and making sure they are healthy.”

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