Preparing a yearling for competition

The owner of the sire of my yearling filly suggested that I present her at a Lusitano breed competition at the end of August. I haven’t decided yet if we’ll go because it’s a 3.5 hour drive and despite his idea that she’ll do well I feel like she’s still very immature when I compare her to other yearling fillies I’ve seen in competition this year. However I want to try preparing her and see how she develops until then. The stallion owner assured me that the yearlings I’ve seen competing who look so amazing have been trained to develop muscles and cardio and that’s why they look great.
I’ve never presented horses in hand before and I’ve never developed a yearling for this so I don’t even know where to start. They can be presented either in hand (running next to them) or at liberty for the movement portion.

How can you help improve strength and musculature at this age ?
We have nice trails that start right from my farm with some moderate hills so my idea was to take her on 20 minute hikes a few times a week at walk and trot. She lives out in a 20 acre field with my other 10 horses so she is already quite active.
Any other ideas ? What about feed ?
She has just been eating grass 24/7 but I was going to start supplementing with alfalfa pellets and a foal pellet…

Any ideas/experiences welcome :slight_smile:

the breeder of the last two weanlings we have bought has been able to increase the cost of their weanlings by about 300% since we took those two to become World Champions Sport Horse in Hand, these two each won a national and a world championship. Both were presented in open competition against all comers within the breed, each was in classes of over thirty head at the breeder’s national championship so they were not competing against poor quality horses.

The breeder has been introducing all their foals to what they call foal kindergarten exposing them to what is basically an in hand class, the foals become very competent.

The last weanling we got we had delivered at the breeds national championships, as a whim since he was there he was entered into the same class his half brother won as a two year ago against aged horses. There was not expectation of the five month old to do anything great, we were just wanting him to gain the ring experience as his class was full of aged horses.

He won by a fairly wide margin becoming the breeds youngest world champion to date at five and half months.

Since that win plus the prior win using this breeders horses the value of all of their production has increased for all the owners.

what does foal kindergarten look like ? What do they do for fitness?

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here is a video of them working a weanling. This is not one that we purchased but the last one came from doing that on the ranch in North Dakota directly to Morgan Nationals where there were over 1200 Morgans, he never gave any of that commotion a second glance,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epv4Shbx2u8

we went on breaking each to harness having them pull a stone sleigh that weight was added as they developed

image

also they were ponied distances with one of the endurance horses we have, there are hundreds of miles of trials here in the city where horses are allowed. One enjoyed the stops at the bar that was next to the trail.

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Calling @Laurierace!

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Oh ok like in-hand trail. I understand how that makes them well-mannered on the ground but it wouldn’t get them fit/muscley to show off their gaits.

to add muscle is the reason we break them to harness then make them work

Your yearling needs a ration balancer, that is why she looks smaller. At no point in her life will her nutritional needs be higher and your diet doesn’t even begin to cover it. All horses need vitamin e, I feed copper and zinc as well and occasionally a fat supplement.

As far as building muscle goes a proper diet will take care of most of that for you but I also walk them in hand a few days a week. If you have access to hills that is even better.

I do everything with my youngsters that I do with my older horses except ride them. They clip and ground drive and load in the trailer etc. I think doing in hand shows as babies sets them up for a lifetime of success

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I have spent several years prepping TBs for the sales; they have it down to a science. Nutrition, exercise, and handling are all important. I took what I learned from that and applied it to prepping my yearlings for the Future Event Horse classes-- won all the qualifiers, had 2 win champion yearling division (2019, 2021), one top placed filly (2021), and one colt finished 3rd overall (2022). My horses are nice, but having them well-prepped made a noticeable difference compared to other (unprepped) yearlings.

My horses are raised on alfalfa, beet pulp and ration balancer, I don’t overfeed or overgrow them. 60 days out from the show or sale, I start prep: stalled during the day to prevent sunbleaching, and walking 30 minutes 5 days per week. Farms with a Eurowalker machine will use that, alternating with handwalking every other day. HANDWALKING IS IMPORTANT! “Machined” horses who never handwalk don’t lead as well and aren’t as attentive to their handlers. I don’t have a walker, so I handwalk or pony them off a good horse. After 2 weeks of walking, work up to jogging on the pony or walker, start with 5 minutes a day, work up to 10-15 depending on horse’s weight and condition. This exercise program isn’t strenuous, but yearlings develop muscle pretty well with just brisk walking. Use a field with a hill if you can. TB sales yearlings will show in a chiffney bit, so we walk in that at home so they are used to it. I used a chiffney with my FEH yearlings too, it’s an easy way to prepare them for a bit later in life.

Some yearling prep programs will lunge or roundpen their horses in sidereins, if the horse has an upside down neck or lacks topline. I really prefer to avoid that, as I don’t like circle stress on young joints and I don’t like tying horses’ heads down as a rule. (Loose sidereins on a horse of riding age is fine, tight straps on a baby is not).

My old boss, a top TB consignor who prepped millions$$$ of yearlings, taught me that you “feed the topline, work the belly.” Meaning, if you have a horse with a weak topline, you won’t fix it simply with exercise, you feed them more protein to grow muscle. If you have a yearling with a big belly, you jog them more to work it off. He didn’t want the yearlings fat, but he would increase their alfalfa hay and 16% protein grain on the harder keepers that lacked topline, even if they had a “belly” they got more food…they just walked a longer or jogged a little faster. That program also fed flax, MSM, Lubrisyn, and Relyne.

Horses are groomed daily, bathed enough to learn to stand well and get any sweat off.

After 60-90 days the yearlings look like strong, fit athletes.

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Thanks for your advice and experience ! This is exactly the kind of info I was hoping to find !

I’ve started giving my filly alfalfa pellets and doing a mix of hand walking and ponying. So far it’s going well and has been good to get her out to see the world a bit as well.

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