Starting a 2-year-old

[Dressagelvr]

I firmly believe that starting a horse both too early AND too quickly directly contributes to soundness problems and lack of career longevity. That said, conformation also plays a role.

In everything I do with my horses, my first question is always: will this benefit the horse? If the answer is “no”, I don’t do it.

The only reasons to start a horse too young (under 4, IMHO) are financial gain and impatience.

That doesn’t mean they stand in a field for 4 years, but no riding or lunging. Ground driving I start at 3. I also pony on the trails at 3. It’s never too early to wear a bridle or saddle and just hang out. There are endless groundwork exercises to be done. I also start taking the babies to local shows down the road 3-4 times a summers as yearlings. They’ve already been seen by the registries as foals. They go in some in hand classes.

Endless life experiences can be gained without sacrificing their minds and bodies too soon. And keep them turned out 24/7 with appropriate company and shelter. Let them learn to be horses while they learn to what we want them to do. This results in a “solid citizen”.

Just wait. You won’t be sorry.

[PNWjumper]

@Dressagelvr

I firmly believe that starting a horse both too early AND too quickly directly contributes to soundness problems and lack of career longevity. That said, conformation also plays a role.
…

The only reasons to start a horse too young (under 4, IMHO) are financial gain and impatience.

Well bless your heart.

Here people are describing how/why they start earlier, and I can certainly say that neither financial gain nor impatience are in my list of deciding factors.

What is, however, is the fact that light and appropriate exercise helps to increase bone density in a young horse. The real key here, though, is “light and appropriate.” I guess if you don’t feel like you can walk out that line accurately then waiting is a better approach. But I find great advantages to starting mine (again, LIGHTLY and APPROPRIATELY for their age) younger. I find it to be easier on their brains and easier on their bodies when it comes time to start “for real” under saddle work a year later.

…as does most of Europe. I wait a little longer than my European counterparts (for weather-related reasons mostly), and I’ve watched sound horse after sound horse after sound horse go on for long and successful careers from the people I know directly over there. Now, it would be irresponsible to not note that they also x-ray all of their young horses, address chips and OCD lesions, and cull the ones that have potential issues identified at that age (something else that I think very few people in the states do with their youngsters).

And…sometimes I don’t start a horse that young. Because as any horse person knows, there are no hard and fast rules that can be applied to all horses. Sometimes a horse is immature for his or her age and I wait until they’re a little older.

But with that being said, there’s just no reason to categorically wait until a horse is 4 (or older). On that note, waiting is not some great positive that has zero down sides. I think the mental and physical benefits of starting a horse young (again, LIGHTLY and APPROPRIATELY) far outweigh the risks.

But the great thing about the world at large is that I don’t have to make you follow my lead. And I don’t need to make jackass statements like, “the only reasons to wait to start a horse until later are ineptitude and idiocy.” Because it’s not true. The truth is that horsemen have their own routines that work in their own worlds. If you want to let a horse sit around for longer, then have at it. For your average intelligence, average athletic ability, average temperament horse, it’s not going to matter a whole lot whether you start them as a late 2yo or early 4yo.

[GramV]

PNWJumper, I don’t think DRessageLvr was contradicting you, as your program of “starting,” as mine, is training and conditioning, not riding. I don’t think what you do with sitting on them and conditioning anyone would consider an issue. I think the issue is in how people define “starting.”

I do have issues what I see with horses started in Europe and would not buy one there. They are putting three year olds in auction that have clearly been ridden quite a bit and are shown in sitting trot with heads held hard. They may look fine on x-rays and such, but I’m betting those horses don’t stay sound well into their 20’s, or even late teens in general.

[Stellaluna]

I started my filly at 2.5 because she really needed a job. By starting I mean I got her comfortable with the saddle on her back and comfortable moving with the saddle up there. I put maybe 10 rides on her that year just getting her moving with me on her back. This year I’m riding her 2-4 times a week asking a bit more of her. Learning steering and transitions and stepping over logs. I’m still not expecting much formal riding. I’m allowing her to do what she needs and not trying to fit her into a box. She’s definitely still growing but not awkward enough to put off riding.
If any youngster is extremely awkward in the paddock I wouldn’t get on their back. Get them comfortable with tack definitely but maybe not riding. And if they ever hit an awkward growth spurt I just give them time until they look good again. I think giving them a job is important, it starts their work ethic off right, but if they have some time off its alright they’re still very young.
I think as long as you’re not trying to rush them or trying to fit them into a specific program putting rides on them early in life is alright. I might not always agree with the Thoroughbred industry but they are staring the babies as yearlings and just two year olds. There are sound OTTBs that are being ridden into their twenties and thirties.

[outerbanks77]

I really appreciate this discussion! I started reading it when I was offered a 2 year old Westphalen filly. She is an April baby, and they had a couple trainers out who do a 3-day backing process, so she’s been ridden w/t/c in a rope halter and western saddle. I think it’s good that this initial process is out of the way, but now that I have this filly in my possession, my observation is that she is way too under-developed to be working with a rider. She is going to finish over 17H, so the legs are there, but she has a ton of body yet to develop and is pretty narrow and light for her frame size, so a rider would upset her balance too much, nevermind the weight load on her spine.

So this fall we will be focusing more on barn manners, getting out to see some sights, and maybe doing some ground driving to get her confidence up. She will probably be a full 3 yo before she has a rider back up again, but I will play it by ear based on her development, and suspect that we’ll just do a few months under saddle and then give her more time to mature until she’s closer to 4 before doing any serious work.

[DMK]

As always, I agree with PNW. I firmly believe that the learning/trust capacity of a 2-3 year old horse is entirely different from an older horse. My personal theory is that evolutionarily speaking, a 2 year old is still mostly protected from the consequences of their curiosity by his dam/the rest of the herd so they are wired to accept new experiences and learn from those that are pleasing/not painful versus those that are scary or hurt. But as they mature, chances are they will be kicked out in a bachelor herd (males) or become the property of a new herd or just not fall under the radar of mom any more (mares) and that is a time when the lessons must be mostly learned, the window for curiosity closes and is replaced by the prey animal’s core philosophy: Leave first. Ask questions later. And horses for all that they are domesticated are remarkably similar to their ancestors. Some more than others.

Our long time joke is that a two year old believes you are the Easter bunny, Santa and the tooth fairy all rolled into one, you are a GOD, they believe they can do what you ask them to do (as a god, your job is to not ask for too much). As a three year old they are pretty much there, but they might be questioning the tooth fairy aspect. It’s possible you aren’t 100% invincible. The 4-5 year old years are known as the Thug Life Years.

Of course common sense goes a long way, if you have that two year old that is hot, ADD and reasonably needs to be worked down before you can get him to pay attention … then the correct choice is NOT to lunge him down, or otherwise work him hard just so you can get a good 15 minute light ride in! That’s the one you are going to have to spend a lot of time on ground work, manners and wait until he is mature enough to handle that kind of work load. But that horse is generally the exception. Most babies are pretty easy and the work we are talking about is considerably less than your average play session with other horses (something 2-3 year olds are known to do… frequently).

[GraceLikeRain]

I have nothing against starting a horse before 3 when done by a very experienced rider with set expectations and goals. Those goals can be very simple like “wait until I settle in the tack before walking off” or “calmly trot through the scary puddle”.

For the most part the riders who have clear expectations and understand baby brains tend to have good results. Riders who want a 2.5 year old but have zero expectations at all create so many issues. To me, the lack of expectations is analogous to wanting to be “friends” with your horse. To a novice it sounds fun, safe, and desirable but more experienced horse people inwardly groan because they know what’s coming.

For me this was most clearly demonstrated by a friend who purchased a lovely horse who was started around 2.5 by a mediocre trainer. Trainers methods consisted of “you do whatever you want and I’ll just sit up here” with no expectations of moving off the leg, balance, respecting the aids, etc. For 6 months a very athletic youngster got to self steer around the ring, pick up whatever lead was easiest, shy away from scary things, avoid puddles, walk off from the mounting block, and end the ride whenever the horse decided to be done. The horse eventually developed into a nice ride but went through several trainers before someone was bold enough to ride through the full repertoire of tricks the horse learned over the years to avoid work.

A strong personality needs early guidance so that you end up with athletic brilliance rather than a hellmonster.

[Milobloom]

I’m enjoying the perspectives on this thread and wanted to ask what people thought and/or had experienced starting them driving first then riding them later? Particularly thinking about some young ones I’ve known who wanted to do something.

[AltersAreUs]

I’ve started a little over a dozen horses in my life. Ages ranged from late 2 year old to an early 8 year old and I have to say, the babies are so much easier to work with mentally. Yes, you have to take it slow and we’re talking 10 minutes of walking about under saddle and calling it a day BUT at that age, most of them are eager little sponges looking to soak up anything you throw at them. Whomever said they see you as Santa Claus is right - they come out going “what are we doing today? That? Cool! Can I have a cookie now?”

By 4, you’re starting to get into the teenage “pushing back” stage where they’re not kids any more and they’re trying to figure out just how much and how often they need to listen to you. You also start hitting the “hey, let’s get hyper reactive” stage in the more hormonal ones. Not my favorite time to be introducing new things. I’d rather know that the saddle is old hat and they’re just acting stupid rather than going “is it real fear or an act today?”

The 8 year old was a terror - she firmly believed there was no reason in the world why she’d want to take part in any of this activity and all the slow & steady in the world didn’t make a dent in it. Took four times as long as any of the babies and involved more than a couple “come to jesus” moments. Now I didn’t know her as a baby … she might have been an opinionated mess then too but I have to think it would have gone a lot easier if someone had gotten to her before her adult views on the world formed.

The other side of the waiting coin, though, is that the later you start, the more you can do. A mature 4 year old is going to ramp up to a full work out fairly quickly. A 2 year old will literally take years to get to that same workout.

[Ajierene]

My Hanoverian/TB cross started doing things the summer of her yearling year - mostly long lining, some lunging, and ponying with the resident pony horse. Prior to this, there was a lot of leading and grooming training. She was never one to worry about leaving the group so it was easy to bring her to the barn, groom her, toss her back out as a weanling.

The end of the summer, I got on her a few times before going away for 6 months.

I came back and we started her that next March into the summer. Revisited some of the lunging/long lining then started riding her. Been riding her ever since. Now, when I start a horse or start working with a horse off the track learning a new job, I spend some time on a loose rein. I like my horses to know how to carry themselves because they are to big for me to carry. So, the first year (she was just about 2 when I started riding her for real) she went around on a loose rein. I rode her probably 5 days a week for about 15 min per ride. She learned leg/steering during this time. We started cantering maybe 3 months into training. Second year, we started working on bending/flexing and long and low. We also added in jumping. The training scaled moved from there.

She’s 7 now, has gotten complements from everyone on how nice she moves, knows all kinds of things (leg yield, shoulder in, haunches in, turn on forehand, turn on haunches, backing up). She is currently jumping 2’9" in competition and is eager to go riding every day. We would be farther along were I not a bit older/broken adult amateur with limited time and funds.

As I mentioned before, I also work with racehorses coming off the track and looking for new careers. Over 90% of them are sound and racehorses are traditionally started the fall of their yearling year and start racing their 2 year old year.

[Action42]

I had my young WB started in January of this year, he turned 3 in April. He went for 90 days of tacking, walking around, mounting, and at the end, a little bit of w/t/c under saddle. I had also sent him to this trainer for 6 weeks as a long yearling for “baby boot camp” - cross tying, straight tying, wearing tack, starting some ground work, so he was well prepared for some further education at 2.8 years old. He THRIVES on learning and is very physically mature despite being about 17.1hh right now. He has never had an awkward day in his life and I trust this trainer very much to know what he is and isn’t ready for at any given time. He came home in April and has spent the summer just being a horse again. He’ll go back either this fall or next spring for some more advanced work and hacking out.

[SnicklefritzG]

I work with my youngsters extensively before they are started under saddle. For me personally, I like introducing them to basic concepts while they are like sponges, before they hit the equine equivalent of terrible 2’s or teenage years like in humans. The yearlings learn to show in-hand, respect a handler, back up, yield different parts of their body in response to a specific cue, stand in the cross ties, etc. long before they are started under saddle.

My two year old has done occasional work in a large round pen and understands voice commands and hand signals to change gait and reverse. She can also function almost entirely off my hand signals. In fact, I’ve led her around in an enclosed area, stood her up, jogged her etc. like we would at a show except she’s not even hooked up to anything. I’ve also taught her to stand still at a mounting block while I walk up and down. She also wears a bareback pad periodically and gets led around with the girth on at its normal tightness.

There are many things that one can do to engage a young horse mentally before it is started under saddle. With this one, I plan to back her myself in the late winter of her 3 year old year (so technically she’d be a few months shy of her 3rd b’day). Depending on how things go, I’ll most likely just walk around with someone leading at first, then walk her off the lead, teach her to turn, then give her a break for a few months then start her up again in the late summer/early fall.

I did some work with her as a yearling when Rex Peterson was in town for clinics and he gave me a lot of good pointers for working with babies. Most of it was geared towards helping teach the horse to listen to its handler, things that have paid off in spades for the in hand showing I do. Even though my sessions with them aren’t that long, the more I teach them, the faster they seem to learn new things.

[Pony_Fixer]

Pfft. There is no one “right” answer for each horse. I started one once at 2.5 yo, easy as the OP suggests, because at 2.5 years he was over 17 hands. I did not want monster baby to also be “I don’t think so” teenager when we first swung a leg over. It was super slow–ground work, saddled round pen stuff, then finish with a 5-10 min walk, sometimes trot. After 30-60 days of this it was winter, he had like 3 months off. Repeated in his early 3 yo year. He went on to show Devon at the 4 yo Materiale, and I sold him as a 2nd level horse a few years later. He was a 2000 model, and has scores as of last year that show up on Centerline Scores. Other youngsters have been treated differently based on their physical and mental development and capability. Don’t pound, keep it simple and fun, and encourage curiosity rather than suspicion and you’ll be fine.

[pluvinel]

I am in the camp of starting the horse as early as possible.

There is no reason a baby can’t learn to stand hard-tied next to its mom…that a yearling can learn to stand quietly at a mounting block…and that work slowly transitions to understanding that humans can sit on their backs.

And from there that sitting on top of them to asking them to move with a rider on their back…and from there to actual “riding.”

The younger they are the more malleable they are.

[Precisionchaos]

Starting young horses and training for soundness is a combination of good understanding of bone growth, development and modeling and managing the horse over its lifetime by balancing the cyclic load of training so as not to overload bone repair, modeling and remodeling beyond the bone’s ability.
And yes, ideally begins before the bones are done growing. MOST of developing the working skeleton of a riding horse is going to happen through free movement before age 1.5. Then we may start adding some specific exercises and light work to stimulate proper bone adaptation, which takes longer than other major organ groups to adapt.
This is where many trainers run into problems…rushing the horse by increasing exercise volume or load beyond the capacity of bone to keep up.
Heart, lungs, other major organ groups adapt quickly and far exceed bone modeling in adapting to training. Most soundness issues crop up when the load exceeds the speed of bone recovery or adaptation. Problems with joints or tendons and ligaments are often secondary to damage to bone. Young horses can and should move and do some amount of work before their young bones are done with juvenile growth, in order to create the “working skeleton” needed for their adult life. Usually this is accomplished through free movement. Horses (all ages) ideally should get 8 hours of turnout/ability to move about and graze freely. This is “down time” where bone repair and modeling happens most efficiently. Bone responds to compression, heart and lungs adapt to volume (of exercise.) So over working “any” horse will result in easily adapted heart and lung capacity, but bone will be further damaged. At the extreme (at least in the scientific circles of study), are thoroughbred racehorses (i.e. sprinters of the equine world) where it is known that 36 cycles of an exercise results in the minimal damage that incurs during “work” needed to stimulate most efficient bone repair, modeling and remodeling needed to build the racehorse skeleton. Going beyond this results in additional damage that can lead to lameness and/or results in too much bone to where the horse is carrying dead weight. (Bone that has overcompensated for the job necessary and is not needed to handle the load and work being asked of it…think of building a walkway bridge designed to carry semi trucks where only humans will ever be walking across…that’s serious overkill!)
So in terms of building a working/riding horse skeleton, the compression loading of activity like free grazing, hand-walking for 10 minutes a few days a week on a hard surface, riding at walk and trot for short periods a few days a week etc will stimulate bone adaptation without the excess damage that creates lameness. Increased exercise to build this working skeleton ideally happens right before bones are done growing, so that a smooth “seam” is created between the baby bones which become stiff as they mature and new growth which is pliable at first as bone models. This helps prevent risk of the types of stress fractures down the road that can be injurious. (Bone models and repairs BECAUSE of stress fractures incurred through work, but having many microfractures in repair builds strong bone, whereas having one stress fracture line that is repeatedly stressed faster than the bone can adapt, can result in disease and longterm issues down the road.)
Bone adapts by either changing its shape or increasing its density. It takes the micro damage from exercise/work to stimulate bone to make this change over time…but it takes time. If we use too much exercise or increase the volume of exercise too greatly, the risk is very high that the damage threshold is breached and the bone cannot repair and model fast enough to keep up.
If we can keep horse’s bones healthy and always adapting slightly below threshold, barring other causes of bone damage or reasons for lameness, a horse should be able to build a skeleton of soundness his entire life.
A great paper on this topic if you want to read more is from the 2013 AAEP conference in Nashville presented by Dr. Larry Bramlage of Rood and Riddle, Response of Bone Necessitated by High Speed Exercise. Every riding horse trainer and competitor would benefit by understanding what is happening inside their horse’s skeletons when we institute exercise and work, and why that work SHOULD begin before bones are done growing, but in the moderation for THAT set of bones that is developing, not damaging. Our horses can be set up for a lifetime of soundness when we follow the lead of this basic biology, whether a jumper, dressage, reiner, racehorse…

[DMK]

@Milobloom

I’m enjoying the perspectives on this thread and wanted to ask what people thought and/or had experienced starting them driving first then riding them later? Particularly thinking about some young ones I’ve known who wanted to do something.

I bought the one in my profile pic to be my driving horse, he was an unbroken 3.5 year old. Really unbroken, he was hanging in a pasture with his buds, mostly just getting getting led in for shots/trims/periodic checkup so I recognized there was more “starting” to do than my last one who I had showing on the line as a 2 year old.

My plan was to break him to drive first and follow up under saddle. But you have to let the horse tell you how to proceed, and while he was pretty unflappable, I could tell he hadn’t taken that deep breath and relaxed about certain aspects that would impact driving so we just set that aside after I started ground driving him and went back to riding. I ended up not starting him to drive for almost 18 mos although he was mentally ready in about 12 (but I was having fun riding so I postponed it until winter). So it depends on the horse. A friend of mine who posts on here is starting her 2 yr old GRP driving pony and it’s pretty obvious he does not have the same concerns.

But I can say when he came back from 90 days driving training he was AMAZING to sit on - powerful, moving out so well from behind and EVEN. And even though he had spent that time walking/trotting, that type of fitness totally cracked the nut on his canter (prior to that he felt very strongly that he was not a cantering breed LOL). Also it’s amazing to me the kind of lateral work you do in properly executing a change of rein and that serves you quite well under saddle. I think a whole lot of riding horses would benefit from driving training (except for the fact that driving equipment is ahem not cheap )

[Precisionchaos]

Yes! Driving them is awesome! A TB trainer I worked for many moons ago allowed us to start youngsters driving and then riding “as if” riding horses rather than racers. The jockeys loved these horses because they could respond to aids readily and knew ‘whoa’ and could focus on running and responding when asked. When they finished racing, they were all set to go as riding horses. Since many of these babies were “What Luck” babies, and kinda tended to be very hot, bringing them up driving and riding made them SOOOO much easier to work with! Something about driving really conditions the horse’s mind to his WHOLE body, perhaps because he is “out there” a bit by himself in a way, able to focus on his body without the distraction of a rider moving on him or a person at his head managing his head and neck (as in leading and daily routine). I really cannot think of any breed of horse that doesn’t benefit from driving first!

[Milobloom]

@DMK

I bought the one in my profile pic to be my driving horse, he was an unbroken 3.5 year old. Really unbroken, he was hanging in a pasture with his buds, mostly just getting getting led in for shots/trims/periodic checkup so I recognized there was more “starting” to do than my last one who I had showing on the line as a 2 year old.

My plan was to break him to drive first and follow up under saddle. But you have to let the horse tell you how to proceed, and while he was pretty unflappable, I could tell he hadn’t taken that deep breath and relaxed about certain aspects that would impact driving so we just set that aside after I started ground driving him and went back to riding. I ended up not starting him to drive for almost 18 mos although he was mentally ready in about 12 (but I was having fun riding so I postponed it until winter). So it depends on the horse. A friend of mine who posts on here is starting her 2 yr old GRP driving pony and it’s pretty obvious he does not have the same concerns.

But I can say when he came back from 90 days driving training he was AMAZING to sit on - powerful, moving out so well from behind and EVEN. And even though he had spent that time walking/trotting, that type of fitness totally cracked the nut on his canter (prior to that he felt very strongly that he was not a cantering breed LOL). Also it’s amazing to me the kind of lateral work you do in properly executing a change of rein and that serves you quite well under saddle. I think a whole lot of riding horses would benefit from driving training (except for the fact that driving equipment is ahem not cheap )

I’ve started several driving horses riding after they had driven for years, I absolutely know it’s such a nice start. What I’m wondering about is the impact for long term soundness, since driving develops fitness and muscle but they don’t have the impact of weight on them or balancing the rider.

If you drove a two year old for a year would you gain the positives of working for bone density and reduce the negative of sitting on a not yet grown spine. Assuming ride or drive would be light work in good footing.

[DMK]

there is still some weight to consider - if it is a cart, the weight is carried on the back (obviously a great deal is mitigated by a well balanced cart) and the carriage is pulled by the breast collar so in theory that is better, but then you have considerably more weight and does that offset the weight on the back? And right now I am splitting my pony’s time between ridden and driven dressage work, working on a lot of the same things and to my mind about the same ratio of W to T work, more canter work while riding (I usually do just a few 30m circles cantering while driving). He comes in more tired (heart rate) after driving than riding. There are some caveats to that - carriage + me + weights (to simulate navigator) makes for a lot more weight than cart+driver and some - but not all - footing is less than optimal, but it is a marked difference in fitness to the task, so that is some food for thought on a youngster because I think there are muscoskelatal risks associated with most repetitive “too hard” work, not just the weight on the back kinf.

But I think as long as the youngster in question is mentally ready for the cart, then I would drive them if I accounted for those caveats. I just don’t want to put a baby in the position of needing to get tired to reach the point of learning - at some point that is inevitable in almost all horse/human partnerships, but being careful to not get in that position with a youngster is job 1 in my view. I think overall though, with the limited amount of work I was planning on doing with any 2 year old, it might be splitting hairs for my program (which is mine and doesn’t need to be adopted by anybody else!) as to which was less overall risk to soundness, because the 2 year old in my program is really just learning some pretty basic stuff that isn’t physically taxing, just (briefly) mentally taxing, if that makes sense?

It probably would do as you speculate but it’s not really my goal for that age, but I have a lot of turnout so I can rely on that for proper bone/muscle development. But I could really see value in mixing up the driving and riding as you went along so when the horse was in his mid to late 3 year old year and you wanted to push a bit more for that core strength you could use a carriage (or cart) to do it.