08/02/2025
I hate the concept of the “30 day start” when it comes to riding horses.
To clarify, what I mean by this is the expectation that within a 30 day window, a horse should be broke walk/trot/canter after never having been ridden prior to that.
There are many issues with this expectation so let me break it down.
1. A lot of these horses are young and not finished growing. Oftentimes, trainers marketing this start are catering to horses between the ages of 2-4 years old.
Taking a horse that is effectively an immature adolescent when it comes to physical development and expecting them to pack weight at all gaits within 30 days is not a fair ask.
Let me ask people this honestly — could you throw on a backpack that is 20% of your weight and exercise at your full capacity and do so without being injured or sore when you’ve not trained for this?
Could you go from never doing this to doing it 5-7 days a week for a 30 day period?
There is no way to introduce this level of work load this quickly and not have other areas of the body taking on extra impact due to the horse fatiguing and not having adequate muscle built to accomplish this.
When you pair that with a spine that is completely underdeveloped, as well as many of the other supporting areas of the body, it’s a recipe for disaster.
2. Fitness is not gained overnight.
Even if a horse has solid ground work, which to be honest, many don’t (as someone who used to offer this service), they have not built the fitness to pack weight.
Fitness is obtained over time.
Structured exercise that gradually increases in intensity as the horse builds fitness is how you develop a fit and functional athlete.
Increasing expectations too quickly is a recipe for an injury or compensatory problems in the body because the horse will have to compensate in other areas for the fitness they have not built yet.
In carrying a human, we are asking a horse to engage their core and lift over their back.
This is basically ithe equivalent to asking a person to do the plank with weight.
Doing the plank with no weight is hard enough.
Imagine putting on 20% of your body weight and being expected to maintain that position for several minutes (or in most cases a 30min to 1 hour session).
You wouldn’t be able to unless you’d trained for it.
If you try to do it all at once, you’re likely to injure yourself.
If you cannot say “no” to your trainer and you’re repeatedly poked and prodded into continuing on when your body is telling you to stop, you’re even more likely to injure yourself.
This is compounded even more by the fact that these young and immature backs often lack the muscles structure to help better support them, which increases the risk of damage to these growing horses.
Even carrying a rider at the walk is a physical task horses aren’t fit for immediately.
Expecting it at all gaits within 30 days is unreasonable as fitness CANNOT be obtained this quickly.
3. 30 day starts undermine the value of groundwork and properly building fitness while prioritizing the human desire to ride.
Let’s be for real: the 30 day start is NOT for the horse. It is for the human.
Humans want to ride ASAP. They want their horse to come home and be rideable for THEM.
The time frame is about trying to jam as much education within as short of a time frame as possible to save money for the owner and send back a horse that they can just get on and go.
But, this comes at the horse’s expense.
It also completely negates the value of ground work.
Starting the horse to ride can involve doing mostly ground work and introducing a rider for short periods of time, allowing for breaks and keeping it within a reasonable expectation for the current fitness level of the horse.
We don’t NEED to be getting on them and staying on them for 30min to an hour just because they’ll let us.
And we certainly don’t NEED to be doing this at all gaits.
There are a lot of benefits that can be gained just from riding at the walk. Or trot.
A horse can end up having a better foundation and building better fitness without being asked to canter for months.
If you want me to be honest, the entire concept of the 30 day start is capitalistically motivated.
It is a great way to make money as a trainer and have a frequent train of horses coming into your program.
It is a great way to ensure clients can get into the show ring and start chasing their goals ASAP.
It is not a great way to promote longevity of the horse and this is seen within the sheer volume of physical problems we see in horses.
The way we start horses is often too quick.
Speeding things up comes at a cost because you cannot speed up physical fitness and muscular acquisition.
It’s high time we rethink the way we structure the training of horses and what we normalize.
Horses are incredible athletes and can continue to push through physical exercise at their own expense.
Just because we can make them do so does not mean we should.
Consider the demands of what you ask of your horse and whether or not it is functionally possible for their body and physical fitness to keep up with your training schedule.
Muscle needs rest time to heal and continue developing.
It also needs to be slowly built up.
When you speed things up to the point where they have virtually no rest and also no time to keep up with the increasing demands of training, it is not a fair ask.
Even if it is profitable and more fun for the humans.
This is why when I am starting horses, I will no longer offer a 30 day start in which I promise a horse who is rideable walk/trot/canter by the end of it.
I used to do it but after reflecting on it, I cannot justify the ethics behind it and I think way more trainers need to consider it.
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
