Any 14 year old with a keyboard can give training advice too…
I just read the earlier discussion. I do not agree with the neuro thing either. That filly in the pics I posted is perfectly normal…I recently kept her here for a week for her owner and I can vouch for that. I also do know what a neurological horse looks and moves like. I have a two time EPM survivor here and he’s about Grade 1.5.
I swear it truly is an internet thing.
I grew up riding. Some horses were hot but most were calm, pleasant and fun to ride. We rode bareback everywhere(even though we had saddles, lol), through the middle of our city, crossing major intersections at crosswalks, tying up at the 7-11s. These were mainly OTTBs, Arabs and QHs with an occasional ASB or pony thrown in the mix.
Swim with them in the lake, break them with no fuss, no muss, no special facilities necessary. Now I’m supposed to believe that many if not most of them were neurologically impaired? Just because they weren’t spooky or obnoxious but calm and very easygoing? We ran, jumped and swam with them. Practically lived at their sides for the summers. For heaven’s sake my best friend walked hers up the stairs into her living room! Her mom had a cow by the way. 
I want a horse from Daydream Believer (just kidding I’m full) but look at those pictures…what it’s all about!
Tiki, please tell me you know I was being sarcastic. :yes::winkgrin:
You all can flame me all you want, but I am merely responding to a thread that seems to be saying any buyer who is concerned about a horse being unusually quiet being an idiot. I take unusually quiet to mean an outlier, and there simply ARE reasons to be concerned sometimes. If a horse is really dull and unusually non-reactive to stimulus that would make a normal well behaved youngster at least perk up, well it could mean something, or could not. But to say a buyer simply asking the question is wrong I don’t agree with.
Mary Lou, I just picked your quote because it kind of said it all. It’s just a vent on the tone of this topic.
I used to have an OTTB who was dead quiet. He won races before I got him. He’d been there/done that. I’d go out on trail rides with the other working students up at Lendon’s and their horses wouldn’t pass a mailbox, or an orange cone. They couldn’t (horses or riders) find the crossing over a ditch once when it was covered with snow. My horse would lead the way past everything, found the crossing over the ditch by testing with his front feet, would leave the others out miles from home and go off with me by himself to other trails. He was dead quiet, he used to win blue ribbons because he was good and had so much presence in a test, wasn’t afraid of the tractor - the other horses were. He’d seen it all at the racetrack and was quiet, not because he was neurological, but because he’d seen it all before.
PP- What does “unusually quiet” even MEAN? When I read your posts, I keep thinking of some kind of dumb looking, non-responsive horse perched on splayed out legs, lop eared, droopy lipped… but then I get the feeling you’re just talking about a lackluster 3 year old.
You’d do yourself a favor to find out exactly what your vets at UC Davis mean when they talk about extravagant movement and unusually quiet temperaments being symptomatic of a horse being neuro. How exactly those things indicate a neurologic horse. That way, instead of coming on these threads discussing a bunch of vague, not really symptoms of anything, you can explain why quietness or superb movement are indicative of neurological problems.
Until then, you’re going to continue to get the same reactions, and with good reason.
I am one of those people who are a bit leery of a very quiet young horse. There is quiet and then there is not present. People do often mistake a horse who is checked out for one that is very quiet. Basically if a horse does not act his age I am going to investigate.
Some horses react to pain by withdrawing… Some withdraw when confused by incongruence… Horses certainly can be depressed and that can present as very quiet.
Not always -but often enough to make note of it - very quiet young horses turn out to be very dull push horses. Horses usually get quieter as they age anyway and a super quiet youngster can be nearly catatonic by six LOL
Another thing to remember is that quiet is not a substitute for training. Ammys get sucked into that one a lot, thinking the very quiet youngster doesn’t need the same amount of training as his more reactive or energetic counterpart. Well of course he does, but his might focus more on going forward than anything else. My four year old is exceptionally quiet and sensible, to me that meant he possibly could end up dull and sluggish, so every time I handled him as a youngster I made sure his response to every aid was crisp, quick and clean. Now undersaddle, he is quiet and sensible with a fantastic go button. With a more reactive youngster I would have focused on slowing his responses to stimuli without neglecting forward.
Personally, for myself, I won’t buy a very quiet young horse if it seems dull in any way. A horse can be quiet and still aware and interactive. Since being energetic and quick off the aids under saddle is very important to me, I can cheat a bit by buying a more reactive horse and honing that reactivity into the response I want. If I look at a three year old and nothing excites him at all, why would I think getting him excited about moving and doing his work is going to be fun or even doable? I want a sensible horse and that is not really the same as quiet… Actually sensible and hot is the most fun IMO…
I do also think that in general, the horse buying public is unrealistic about how a healthy yearling, a two year old, a three year old, generally behaves and want horses to be unnaturally quiet for their age.
Just want to add a personal note - I have a 4 year old (bought her as a late 2 year old from her breeder) who I started myself under saddle. From the get-go, she was trained to be quick off the aids. She responds wonderfully with the lightest asking. However, she is so extremely quiet that I don’t think her breeder taught her to be quick when responding to handling. After trying gently and getting ignored, I often have to ask sharply to get a response (ie to back up, to move over, etc might take a few good smacks!).
[QUOTE=EqTrainer;5042008]
I am one of those people who are a bit leery of a very quiet young horse. There is quiet and then there is not present. People do often mistake a horse who is checked out for one that is very quiet. Basically if a horse does not act his age I am going to investigate. [/QUOTE]
I didn’t quote EqTrainer’s entire post for space’s sake, but I would reiterate the same thing.
I’ve had babies who were kind and sensible and just never had that “spark” (or evil streak as it manifests itself sometimes :lol:) and the only conclusion I can draw from my experience was that those horses wound up to be fantastic amateur horses, but none of my super quiet youngsters ever had what it takes to be successful in the big jumper ring. So my first suspicion when I see a quieter-than-normal baby is that there’s a chance that the horse is not quite as intelligent as what I would like. I know there are some who are “mature beyond their years,” but I’ve found that to be the exception rather than the rule.
So I agree that I would absolutely investigate reasons for a baby not acting like a baby. Could mean nothing and could mean something.
this, along with ET’s post, is what really needs to be discussed.
There is quiet, and there is “what’s wrong with that horse”.
Even as a weanling, and yearling, and 2yo, and 3yo, and every year, my quiet WB gelding has always acted like a horse. He’d get startled, but he would startle and stop, not bolt. He would get big and snorty, but that’s it. He’d rather stop and stare at the plastic bag blowing across the field, or even go see it, than run first ask questions later. It’s not as if he just never noticed anything, never reacted.
Big difference.
Until you’ve seen the truly quiet-natured youngster, it’s easy to think there’s something wrong if you have it in your head that all youngsters are supposed to be a Wild Child.
It’s not wrong to be suspicious, but neither is it cause to assume he’s sick :lol:
I agree 100% with eqtrainer too. Quiet as a baby = not electric enough to get beyond the lower levels in competition. They make ideal amateur horses, they are probably what most people want but if you have ambitions of training a horse to be Grand Prix in jumping or dressage or Advanced in eventing you almost always have to buy a baby horse who is very full of energy and bounces and spooks when they are young. Because all horses calm down as they get older and a very quiet 3yo is invariably too quiet as an 8 yo. (too quiet here means too quiet for high level performance, not too quiet to be fun to ride)
Having trained horses to the GP level, I have to say there is a LOT of misinformation here. Quiet to one person is perfect for another. Training a horse up to the top levels does not require a horse that is “hot” to the aids initially, as fitness plays a role in this. What is needed is a quick reaction followed by a quicker return to relaxation in muscle groups so that an aid, such as flying changes every stride, can be repeated without the horse “boiling over.” The really reactive ones require a very soft laid-back rider, and a stronger rider may prefer the quieter ride.
So true. :yes:
What she said from a rider’s perspective!!! Two thumbs up!
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I’m also a rider. Competed to PSG, trained higher. I’ve been around GP dressage horses for several years now and none of them are what I’d term as “quiet”. Many well known ones were extremely difficult when they were young. Even national level GP horses tend to be sharp and forwards, more sharp and more forwards than most amateurs, even good amateurs, can cope with.
I went looking for a young dressage horse prospect two years ago, was open minded about the breed but knew just what sort of temperament I wanted. After a long search I found the right horse. She is a real lady but she is also all business and extremely athletic. She could never be described as quiet but she is also rarely naughty.
I stick by what I said before. Quiet horses don’t get to GP. Heck the statistics are that only 1 in 100 horses that make it to 4th level get to GP and the majority of dressage horses don’t even reach 2nd level. A GP horse is special and rare. They have to work incredibly hard and keep trying even when it hurts (think going to the gym and working when you’d rather stop). Most quiet horses just don’t have the spark it takes to work that hard.
And yes, I know that you train a horse to be sensitive to the aids and that you can teach a naturally laid back horse to be more forwards but you can’t train a horse to have the speed of reflexes and hind leg speed needed if they don’t possess them naturally. You also need a clever horse who enjoys working. To some extent a work ethic can be trained and improved but a manufactured work ethic never matches the will to work of the natural workaholic.
If none of this was true and any horse could reach GP with the right training why do breeders take so much time and care choosing their broodmares and the stallions they breed them to?
I had to laugh reading some of this. When I started riding and eventually breeding, I first had Arabs, then TBs (often straight off of the track). When I bought my first warmblood (from Angela Barilar rest her soul) she walked off the trailer and into a stall and laid down and went to sleep. I was absolutely convinced that she was dying. No kidding. And in the days afterwords I chased her with a lunge whip convinced that she was experiencing pain somewhere and was unable to move (OMG - now I feel soooo bad). Turns out, that really was her personality. Her foals from me were all sold to ammy homes and when she was sold I was told that her foals “nearly need started with spurs on”. THey all took after her - lacking the “flight” gene entirely. LOL
What is needed is a quick reaction followed by a quicker return to relaxation in muscle groups so that an aid, such as flying changes every stride, can be repeated without the horse “boiling over.”
Stolensilver, analyze the sentence above. IMO, that describes a horse that is quick to react (as you say is needed), but that also handles the aids with composure. IMO that will make a better GP horse than one that, as the writer suggests, “boils over.” I also happen to know the background of the person who wrote what you quoted above and she has been around GP horses (actually training many horses to GP) for longer than many on this board have been alive. Her description of what is required strikes me as quite valid.
17 years ago I bought an ugly little longbacked chestnut Canadian Sporthorse (HAN/TB) as a three-year-old because he was as quiet as it gets, and his canter was outstanding. He had been under tack for a month. I had just sold my uber quiet foxhunter cum dressage horse – and I thought I might flip this one as he was SO QUIET, and his canter just sucked you into the saddle. He gave pony rides to the nieces at three, hacked out on the buckle with beginners in the lesson program.
I sold him at the age of 7 to his trainer and he most certainly made it to grand prix. It was the only horse she had ever ridden above PSG. The trainer freely admits that she made every mistake in the book with him as they came up the levels. But when, during their journey together she would get on him and say “Sorry, dude…I know I’ve been telling you to do it this way forever, but I was wrong and now we do it this way”
He always said, no problem, now we do it this way.
I agree that GP horses are special. Frazier was special. He came out of his stall every day wanting to work. THAT’S what got him to GP, that and his inherent kindness and his adaptability. It had nothing to DO with how quiet he was and at 20, still is.
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