I recently discussed the idea of riding two year olds, especially with respect to racing, although it applies to any horse. I was schooled by those who showed me articles claiming that riding horses that young actually strengthens their bones. I read those and began to rethink my position. But I’ve been doing more research on the subject and I now stand very firmly behind my original position - no horse should be going under saddle at the age of 2. No horse should be ridden routinely by 3. A 4 year old horse is still a baby and should have very short, easy, limited riding. I know this is controversial. It shouldn’t be. Anyone who knows anything about horses, should KNOW that a horse is not physically (skeletally) mature until the age of 6. I am attaching an article by Dr. Deb Bennett - I’m sure most of you have heard of her. Her credentials in the field are exemplary. The article is 21 pages, but well worth the read. I’m not here to bash horse racing (nor was Dr. Bennett when she wrote this piece), and I’m not here to convince anyone of anything. I’m attaching the article because I know it to be true, and I am going to continue to start babies on the ground at 2 and not back them until 3, and then only for a short time and very easy rides, to be sent out to pasture until 4 or 4 and a half before bringing them in and slowly bringing them along in their training. There is no reason to rush the early training, but there are a great many advantages to it.Skeletal Maturation in Horses Ranger Piece.pdf (2.0 MB)
Lots of people and professionals disagree with you.
Where are the studies showing that riding strengthens bones? The only credible cites I’ve seen are looking only at cannon bones, and only of race-training 2yo TBs.
There are other ways to hep with bone ingregrity without the kind of ridden work needed to affect that cannon bone strengthening, at least as-studied. Maybe it doesn’t take even the kind of training work those horses are doing, maybe it’s basic w/t work, but that’s not what the studies I’ve seen have looked at
In other words, I haven’t found any study that looks for the lowest amount of X type of work to make a positive impact without also having negative impacts.
That said - just because growth plates are open does NOT mean a horse can’t be in work. Way more details matter - weight of rider, duration and frequency of work, quality of work, for starters.
Lots of people are behind your firm stance that no 2yo should be ridden. Ever? What about a 30 month old with a 125lb rider for 20 minutes 3 times a week, basic walk/trot/whoa/steering? Where does your line between a 2yo and a 3yo get drawn - 36 months on the dot? Not 34?
You can ruin a 3yo (or 4/5/6yo) with in correct work just as fast as you can ruin a 2yo.
There’s also nothing wrong with your way, especially if your horses are out full time on enough acreage. But if they’re (yours or anyone else’s) are living in mare motels, or turned out full time in 1 acre paddocks for 8 hours a day and stalled for 16, don’t expect a 3-4-5yo to be as strong as a 2yo who’s been running around on 10 acres full time for 24 months.
There’s also a HUGE difference between quality race training of a 2yo, with a lightweight rider, going in straight lines and big wide curves, how horses are designed to work, and a 190lb man getting on a 2yo and working on a ring and having a horse able to w/t/c circles and even baby sliding stops at the end of 90 days. I’d buy the former horse over the latter horse every day of the week. I would not buy a “finished” 3yo even if he was started at 3.
I had a big WB whom I backed VERY lightly in the Fall of his 2yo year, so he was a solid 30-31 months. Literally about 8 rides, walk, steer, whoa, and I think the last couple of rides we added in some trot. Then he was turned back out until he was 3, and I proceeded to start like you describe - a few rides a week, w/t/whoa/steer, and didn’t even introduce canter until late Summer. He lived out full time excepting a few months of his 2 or 3yo year, stalled just at night. At 5, he came to live at our new farm, out full time. He had a few injuries in that timespan in which he was (obviously) out of work, and slowly re-started, so definitely not hard work in his first 6 years.
By 8, he had hock arthritis.
And, LOTS of horses are lightly, correctly (proper groundwork prep, proper riding) as a late 2yo, turned out, re-started at 3 for light work, who are happily working well into their teens and 20s.
I think your whole anti-2yo mindset is based on incomplete information
OK, clearly neither of you read the article. That’s what I’m hoping to discuss. Cowboy_Girl, I don’t care who disagrees with me, I care who disagrees with what’s in the article that I attached. I’d like some good discussion around that, that’s all.
Am I okay with sitting on a 2 year old a couple times? Sure. Am I okay with a late 3 year old learning to walk, trot, stop and steer under saddle for a few mins? Yes. Do I think 2, 3 or 4 years should be full work? Nope. I don’t do it to my horses and I won’t buy a horse started young.
Sorry, I don’t have time to read a 21 page article. I’ve read all this type of info over enough years to know which bones finish closing at roughly what times, including the fact that the hock bones take from the 3-5/6yo years to finish - some finish earlier, others finish much later. If there are segments of particular interest to support your black and white beliefs, I’ll gladly read those.
But I did skim things to try to find some points of contention. Let’s look at this part:
“But before you can do that [work him hard] without significantly damaging the animal, you have to wait for him to mature, which means - waiting until he’s 4-6 years old before asking him to carry you on his back.”
So where is it scientifically proven that’s the case? I haven’t found a single cite to back that up, and I’ve looked into this a LOT over the years.
Her idea that the ASB with lordosis was caused by early, inverted work is opinion. There is a lot of genetic lordosis in the ASB
Other than that, if there are specific areas you’d like to discuss, I’m happy to provide my own thoughts.
FWIW, i’ve started all my youngsters between 2.5 and 3 yrs, depending on their level of physical maturity. Once i’ve backed mine, they stay in work, i don’t do the “30 or 60 days then kick 'em out to pasture” business. Once they’ve graduated to under saddle work, that’s their new reality. They get 1 or 2 week breaks here and there to relax and recharge (like us humans do, lol), but that’s it. I start super slowly and gradually. I sit on them, have someone lead them around for 1-2 minutes, then get off. Once or twice a week for a few weeks. Then once i’m riding them sans ground person, twice a week, five minutes of walking, halting, directions changes. A few more weeks. Then a few steps of trot - again, twice a week, for maybe 5-6 minutes total. A few months have gone by at this point. I slowly work up to 15 minutes, walk/trot, changes of direction, halts, transitions, etc. I increase frequency (not duration) to 3x/week once they’re officially 3 (or 3.5 for the later bloomers). Still just 15-20 min each session, max.
And so on. Slowly, gradually, no pressure, no major competition goals or anything like that, making sure they’re relaxed and confident, and working with massage and chiro to keep them comfortable and monitor their physical state/development.
Every single one of them is still sound and still in work - the oldest horse I started myself is 18 this year. It’s much less about “age of starting” than it is about all the contributing factors @JB listed - rider weight/experience, duration, frequency, proper tack fit, husbandry/care, etc…
I have known a number of people who waited til 4-5 to start their horses and right away started them in a program of 4-5 rides a week, having them going w/t/c within a month and then going from there, and those horses had chronic lameness problems a few years later. 
It depends on the horse, the rider, and the training done. The investigation on young TBs in race training by Dr. Larry Bramlege (spelling?) showed that appropriate exercise while bones were not mature resulted in sounder racehorses in the long run. That taking advantage of the time in a horse’s life when the bones are the most able to remodel is key to building strength in the bones and joint surfaces.This has been my experience, and done correctly, and without a bad luck incident, it’s proven to ring true IMO. BUT, the TB horse has been bred for this work, selected breeding stock based on successes, and though the maturity of the bones is roughly the same as in most other breeds, the maturity of the nervous system and muscle tends to be more advanced in TBs than in many other breeds. A TB is not “uncoordinated” at 2, is usually well developed with muscle and athletic. Some other breeds of horses are not as coordinated and well muscled as a young TB is at 2, and thus, are more likely to take a missed step, stumble, and hurt themselves. So, though the bone development is on a similar timeline, the neuromuscular development is not. Therefore, what “goes” for TBs may not be a suitable timeline for some other breeds.
Riders also tend to be light and well balanced for TB training, and ride for 15 minutes on a groomed track. This makes a difference for a young horse. A 250 pound rider galloping a 2 year old up a mountain for an hour and a half isn’t a good plan for any horse.
If you don’t want to ride and train a 2 year old horse under saddle, that’s fine, you don’t have to do this. It’s a personal decision in every case. It always depends on your own situation, and your goals for the horse. Keep in mind that there are a certain percentage of non racehorses, who have not been started under saddle early, and have never been asked to race or pushed hard for performance, who go unsound doing nothing more than trotting around in a riding arena, with a rider who has all the best intentions in the world for the horse.
My last racehorse, who was green broke in the fall of her yearling year, trained at the track at 2 but did not race (sore shins after gate approval 3/8ths workout) raced at 3, 4, and 5, retired with clean legs with me and started her jumping career, and took me down the lines up to 5’ in the local 3 Bar classes, has NEVER had a joint injection of any kind in her life, and is now 24 and a retired pasture rat. She’s only 15.2 hands, and the 5’ bar is way taller than she is.
Yeah, if you break (ruin) a horse doing that, the work wasn’t the problem, there was something structurally wrong. Way too many horses get started like that, and live long sound lives, to think that a method like that is going to ruin the just because some growth plates are still open.
By that line of thinking, human kids shouldn’t be doing ANY sports until they’re in college.
Yep, utter ignorance of the whole process 
but plenty are. Breeds aren’t exempt from growing spurts that unbalance them. What’s much more likely is the TBs (or Arabian, or QHs) being bred for the track are bred based on how well they perform as early as possible, and do perform that well, they have to generally be a line of horses who aren’t in weird uncoordinated growth spurts in those critical early racing days.
IME TBs wait until age 4ish to have their weird fugly growth stage that makes them forget how to horse 
Dr. Bennett mentions those studies in the article I posted. She doesn’t disagree with them, but she says they don’t tell the whole story.
I agree with you there. I start them with ground work at 2. They can be backed and walked briefly. I think waiting to 4 or later and then just going straight into full work is a recipe for disaster. I’m not advocating that. Nor is Dr. Bennett.
She’s giving the science behind it later in the article - it’s proven science, not one person’s opinion. I appreciate that it takes a while to read through and that most of us have better things to do. But (and I did try a couple times) I can’t post specific excerpts from it. It must be locked or formatted differently from what my computer can handle. I really think everyone can find something to learn in there. It’s worth the read when you have time.
Humor me, pretty please, and give me a hint. None of the research articles cited at the end are looking at why you MUST wait until his spine is fully “fused” before adding weight.
So, has there been no proven science that has come out since 2008 that you find reliable?
Yes there has, of course. But there is nothing that has come out since that DISproves any of this.
You’re beating your head against the wall. So many people will argue for riding and training early. They will cite the soundness of their horses. Maybe their horses do stay sound without any medical help, but what about all the ottb’s, reiners, barrel racers?
As to the post about “I guess children shouldn’t do sports until they are in college” - way to make it sound like that’s what we’re talking about here. How about a 4th grader being made to do two mile runs carrying a 10lb rucksack three days a week and a fast sprint one day a week. Let’s do a study on those kids.
Proper exercise on many surfaces is good, speed training with weight is not so good.
Dr. Deb Bennett is an absolutist zealot who is deaf and blind to any research that does not support her beliefs and conclusions. As far as her academic credentials, her BS and MS are in geology and her PhD is in Vertebrate Paleontology, not exactly the credentials of a person trained to engage in thoughtful and fully informed research in this area.
@JB is right. Dr. Bennett’s infamous Ranger article only describes the skeletal anatomy and age-related growth plate changes of a representative developing equine. Nowhere does she address, in a scientific research-supported manner, the question of “So what?” She never explores the truly significant aspect of the topic, which is what the effects are of riding or otherwise working horses at different stages of development and why it is essential to wait until the spine is fully “fused” before adding weight.
I read the Ranger article decades ago and yeah, at first blush, it kinda seems reasonable. But the more you look into the subject, the more research holes and conflicting findings you find and the more experts you find who have better academic credentials than Dr. Deb and who don’t agree with everything she says.
You aren’t that new here. Haven’t you read any of the posts by dressage and hunter and jumper riders about their horses soundness and maintenance issues? There have been many of them over the years.
I sure have, I’ve read countless posts about what to give a horse that has hock, back, neck, hoof, etc problems. What injections should I give, what supplements should I have my horse on, etc. How you use your horse is your business. But I don’t have to agree or like it.
