03/24/2025
Just read and ask questions after.
Not saying you should totally wait until 5 or 6 to start riding but asking way too much, way too soon, WILL HAVE CONSEQUENCES, especially when forced on to them in a very short amount of time without allowing them to strengthen and balance their body and mind! This last part goes for any age!
Soooo many educational and fun things you can do before you start riding them and so many people who selfishly just want to ride, because, well, so and so says you can. Well, so and so is stuck in the old times and refuses to evolve. Know better, do better!
I learned a new sentence today: Slow living. It means doings things in a more calm and mindful matter. Stop the rush!
This past weekend, I declined a request to take a 3yo on my farm to start under saddle this summer.
The owner of the horse was kind, understanding and appreciative of my reasoning why, and I'm grateful for that. It gives me hope that the tides are changing.
But I also recognize that this person isn't the norm. In most cases, the youngster would get started one way or another, by whomever was willing to take it in the timeline the owner wanted.
I have personally owned more than my fair share of broken horses, and with decent regularity I work with horses owned by others that I suspect have some significant physical issue contributing to the reason I was called out in the first place. A focus on the foundational aspects of horsemanship tends to highlight problems a horse has, and my personal ethics dictate that I not move past, gloss over or otherwise ignore something I see as problematic. I used to do this all the time because when you train for the public, the pressure to do so is enormous.
The reality is that we KNOW that horses do not skeletally mature until the age of six, at the earliest. And yet horses "on the payroll" well before that is still common and accepted.
We KNOW study after study is showing that kissing spine, pelvic fractures, boney degeneration and arthritis is occuring earlier and more often in working horses. And yet the industry continues to push the idea that stressing young, growing joints early on is a positive, beneficial thing.
I think a lot of us still struggle with that space between what has been so acceptable for so long, and all the new understanding we have, and the wide availability of this information. I certainly do. I am grateful I don't train full time, because I'd probably be disappointing a lot of people.
But from my standpoint, seeing what I see, most people would benefit from spending more time on the ground with their young horses, getting a lot of things working a lot better, in preparation for when the horse is ready to start being ridden. There are so. many. things that happen in the saddle that can be well-prepared from the ground. There are so. many. accidents that happen while sitting on a horse that could be avoided with better preparation that doesn't require being astride. There are so. many. injuries that occur that could be avoided by taking the time to develop the animal properly before adding weight to their back.
I'm willing to die on this hill. We don't see enough strong, solid, sound twenty-something year old horses, still fit and being ridden and ridden well. It seems that there has never been a point in history for the horse where living has been so easy, and yet it also seems like living does not equal truly thriving.
