13/11/2025
I used to see no issue with starting horses under saddle at 3 years old. And even 2 years old.
Then, I got perspective.
I watched young horses grow and how their bodies developed and changed drastically, especially between 3 and 4 years old.
I started to question how quickly horses were brought along.
I thought about my own fitness and how ill equipped I would be to carry a backpack that was 10-20% of my weight and do so for 30 minutes to an hour at all speeds… without ever gradually building the capacity to do so.
I thought about how my back would be sore, how I would have to compensate for the fitness I didn’t gain.
And then I thought about what we do with horses.
How many horses are started under saddle and going walk/trot/canter within the span of 30 days.
How they’re expected to pack weight for 30min + basically right away.
How throughout all of this, if they’re only 2 or 3, they have a completely under developed spine and many weight bearing joints that are still fusing.
And then I thought about how easy it is to start to build fitness without the weight of a rider.
So, despite the fact that I never would have thought my perspective would shift in this way, I do not see an argument for starting horses before four years old.
And even at four years old, we should be scaffolding their training and gradually adding weight and gradually increasing the amount of time they are expected to pack weight.
Otherwise, what we are left with is young horses with under developed spines and poorly developed top lines who have no capacity to properly carry the rider who sits on them.
And then, people wonder why we see such a high rate of injury in sports horses.
Just because competition demands normalize starting horses at a certain age and normalize progressing at a quick pace does not mean it is contingent to longevity and horses or in their best interest.
Movement for young horses is important.
This can be achieved with adequate turnout and also with groundwork training.
All of the studies that people reference regarding bone remodelling to try to justify riding earlier do not explicitly state that riding is necessary to have that occur.
We can put mild stress on the joints and help build density and strengthen the soft tissue without having weight on the spine.
The fact of the matter is that horses were not built to pack weight in the first place.
If we are going to ask them too, we need to adequately prepare them.
In the current culture of the Horse world, I don’t feel that this is happening in a lot of cases.
Horses are started young and brought along quickly, and it’s justified with a number of different excuses, none of which account for how many horses end up with significant physical issues in the long run.
The sheer number of horses that we see being sold off because they are not sound for their intended purpose should be enough of a red flag that we need to seriously reflect on the way we do things.
So, I encourage people to ask themselves if they are wanting to start their Horse is young for the benefit of the Horse or if it’s just because they don’t want to wait for the horse to develop.
If I’m being honest, despite all of the excuses, I would’ve made to try to justify that it was for the benefit of the Horse, every single time I started a horse at two and three, it was because I was impatient.
It was because I wasn’t well-versed in groundwork and didn’t know what to do.
It was because I wanted to ride more than I wanted to give my horse the time to grow.
And I think this is reflected across the industry.
Where the human desire to ride, the desire to compete, consistently comes above what might be best for the horse.
I’m willing to eat my words if information comes out that shows that it is truly beneficial for horses to be started young.
But, currently what we are seeing with the frequency of injuries in horses throughout their lives and how many horses end up with physical problems in the long run, I don’t believe that to be the case.
Currently, the bone remodelling studies we do have focus on young horses in short careers, such as racehorses.
They don’t account for a long scale studies that look at horses in their teens and later years and how their bodies are doing then.
I don’t know about you, but I want my Horse to be comfortable and physically capable longer than just their first 5-6 years of life.
And, if you do too, I caution you in justifying riding horses early using studies that do not account for the long-term.
