I will say that I’m in the camp of getting on them at 3 and just bebop around, never breaking a sweat. I’ve found that 4 and 5 year olds think the hay is free, and never develop the same work ethic as the one who tooled around at 3.
This isn’t universal, but it’s been more often than not in my experience.
Hit the nail in the head there.
Training an older colt late 3 and more, even very talented ones it all comes easy to them, will learn with an “do I have to and why?” and you have to explain.
A two year old will go “oh, how interesting, what else can we have fun with today?”
After starting colts in Europe, rarely one under four backed as a late three, to start colts at two once in the US was a revelation, way easier on the colts also.
Two’s were overachievers with way less resistances, had to be sure not to let them do too much, taking our time, they loved to learn and to work with you, human routine was so much of their mental life.
Older colts have seen the nice free life or their hours being theirs and are a bit harder to motivate.
Feral horses, many already fully mature, were a whole different kind of horse to start.
Their whole environment had changed, they were learning about a completely new and scary world and learning to be handled and ridden was part of it, extremely attentive and also easy to motivate, more than domestic four year olds.
I wonder when people have opinions about starting horses under saddle under how many different ways they have experience with starting horses.
In reality, each horse is an individual and rules are hard to apply to all, they can be so different.
I will still say, when managing horses at any age and for any task or discipline, doing right by each horse may be the most important.
As the OP can see, I think the answer to the title’s question here has been, yes, we can talk about the Hegelstrand video and situation and so much more this topic involves.
I was trying to figure out how to say this, you nailed it. A 2 and 3 year old think you’re super cool and fun. A 4 and 5 year old could, like, do without you. I’d rather convince the young one that riding is fun, than the older one.
Sorry, I just don’t have this experience at all. I have been starting young horses for 30 years and have started many of them past age 3. I think a big part of it has to do with how much handling you do with them ahead of time. If you pull them out of a field and go straight to starting them they absolutely will have that attitude of “Why do I need you,” but if you spend time with them first, the age doesn’t matter. Each horse is definitely an individual and saying that all horses over age 3 don’t want to work is way too much of a generalization.
Wow
Does she mean experience in beating up horses?
I’ve had this same thing said to me by other famous riders numerous times. Hester told me I probably bounce on my horses back.
Yeah, when you lead with the ad hominem attack, I’m not terribly impressed. It’s sickening that she’s more concerned with our experience than with blatant abuse.
Um, what?? Can you elaborate on this? Not that I need to know, but I sure am curious now…
I posted a mild criticism of something he did, there were compliments too but he came to my FB page to scold me.
It did not go as he thought it would. I couldn’t care less who any famous people/riders are. I’ve known too many to become intimidated or ooooh-y.
He did it a few times until I asked him why he would care what I said. If I’m just a nobody like he said I was.
that’s actually kind of funny.
I have not caught up on the whole thread yet, but wow. Are there a lot of young horses that sell for this kind of price for this job? 
I do sort of wonder which of the assorted horse sports are hardest on the horses, especially when they start at a very young age. When I see horses doing this sport or the reining with the sliding stops, I also wonder how often they need to get their hocks done.
Does he work for Helgestrand ?
Yup, “slow is fast”. That goes for lunging too. 20 min walk both ways before trotting. After 15 mins or so of walking, you can really see the change in stride.
Hott Twice was a record setter. There was another one at that sale for just under $1m. A couple the past few years for over $1m at the same sale. Prices like that normally happen in private sales and not public, but its been hot the past few years at the sales.
I mean - VS THe Fireman sold for over $2m earlier this year. And he is a pleasure horse. https://www.showhorsetoday.com/2023/08/vs-the-fireman-tops-vs-dispersal-sale-see-the-full-results/
Depends on hock injections. Mine is a huge stopper and she’s had hocks done twice in her life (she’s a 2013 model and started as a 2 year old in late January/February). Some yearly. There’s always some bad apples in the bunch that inject before checking for any other problem.
And the horse owners/AH clients as well.
Thanks for the info.
I was also thinking about how much pressure it must put on the rider as they are trying to work cows in that auction situation. I was glad to see that the guy at least did not keep the horse working the whole time and let him just walk around as they were finishing up the bidding process.
I know that with the young race horse auctions, their time on the official work for the sale is a huge deal that has a lot of impact on the selling price. But at least that happens in advance, not as the auctioneer is actually trying to bump up the bids.
I just love this retort when people don’t like the truth being served them.
Indeed, you don’t know my experience… and exactly how experienced do I need to be to recognize spur holes in horses sides = bad anyway? 
I wouldn’t be surprised if the horse’s sale price was agreed upon outside of the ring. The agent/trainer Wes is great with those 2 y/o. He had the high seller in the 2 y/o sale several times, including the first $1m sale at the NCHA sales. https://youtu.be/u0DGg9SkBs8
IMO this is not gonna happen and everybody can draw its own conclusions from it…
Not sure why culling seems to be such a big thing here but that is for sure one of the least problems.
None of the famous riders will say anything because so many are involved. They all learned from each other and know each other methods. Of course some are worse and maybe some even gained so much experience over the years that they will approach problems in a softer way…
I remember Hubertus Schmidt rode in the a Hamburg Derby many years ago. He was a hopeful for some international competition and the National coach was there watching in the warm up ring…. I was watching at the warm up ring as well.
In fact it was beautiful to watch him warm up his horse. You could literally see how the horse got better and better. And then he left for the test. (Which I did not watch).
When he got back he was pretty upset and started to ride his horse really hard, He whipped it and it was pretty horrible to watch. Obviously something went wrong in the test. He rode and rode and the horse turned white. (This was probably 30 years ago so no PETA) Finally the national coach told him to stop punishing the horse…. I lost a lot of respect for him then. Some years ago I read an article from him about how to handle spooky things with horses and he said that over the years he stopped forcing his horses to go close to it and simple works the horse in the other end of the arena until it gets more confident.
So maybe now he has a softer approach to problems….
My problem is that I am old enough to have seen a lot and I also do know the background of some big names in the sport…. So for me there are no illusions left….
And I know how to sit on a horse 
To me if a 10 year old horse needs hock injections, that’s a red flag. And don’t get me started on people who inject their 6 year olds believing it somehow prevents arthritis. I’ve had 2 horses injected in my lifetime, and both were around age 20 when they first needed it. They both made it to FEI levels so it’s not like they had a super light workload their whole life.
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