Maybe I’m misunderstanding your timeline, but this is only realistic after the first few months. Changing riders on a horse in its first 30-60 days is of benefit to no one. You mean get the horse started first and then start riding it along with the trainer, right?
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Agreed. I would not agree to this if I were starting a horse. The first 30 days really need to be with one person. Then, you can work in your rides.
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Hard to tell from your post but it sounds like you are sending her to a colt starter to get going and then looking for someone to put a nice foundation on top of that with you also doing some riding/lessoning? I think a reputable empathetic dressage trainer who is experienced with YOUNG/BABY GREEN horses would be a fine choice even with wanting to end up in hunter land. Whether you are with them 6 months or 2 years is up to you but I think you would find either beneficial IF the trainer is competent and good with the babies. Cross training by hacking out and off farm low pressure excursions are also really beneficial in this time frame. There are excellent dressage pros who meet the above criteria–just make sure the person you are picking is one of them.
If you are not sending to a colt starter first I think your plan of one training ride, one lesson and a ride on your own is not suitable to really start a baby. Too confusing for a just backed one.
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Another voice here saying that I wouldn’t do this if the timeline is as presented. The first 30-60 days (more, if the horse is only being “worked” 3 days a week and the rest is hanging out in the field) should really be one rider. You’ll confuse the poor thing.
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The trainer wouldn’t start the horse - she would spend 60 days with the person who will back her and then I would move her to the dressage trainer’s farm.
However I also have the option of keeping her with the trainer who will start her - she operates a much smaller training program (only a handful of students) but we share many of the same beliefs about young horses (ie turnout, hacking, exposure to new things). She is a bit further from my house - probably about 45 minutes on a good day. But the continuity might be worth the longer drive
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That sounds like a decent option - play it by ear. I know more dressage people that I would NOT want to start my hunter than ones I would, and it’s not because they’re bad horseman. It’s just the expectation of the horse is totally different. I feel like hunter may be more aligned to a soft spoken cowboy than a dressage rider - expecting the horse to go low and manage itself rather than be nit picked.
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Thank you for clarifying, OP. Based on my experience, sending her to a starter and then letting them start her without becoming a “helicopter mom” and then moving her to this nearby trainer would be best for the filly. IMO.
Question about Dressage trainer, is she at the barn full time running her small program or does she also work elsewhere?
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Agree!
She freelances elsewhere but the majority of her time is spent running the program out of her home farm
Thats good, she is there and it is her home farm. Some hints of stability.
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OP, before you commit, see if there is a western or ranch horse trainer near you that starts colts.
IMO, the psychology and relationship with the bit that the H/J and western riders want is more similar than what the dressage folk and those other disciplines want.
For instance, I don’t see the value for a young horse (save maybe the competitive dressage horse) in lunging in side reins or “getting consistent in the contact.” Rather, IMO, a baby horse needs to learn to carry himself and a jumping horse needs to be allowed to keep some of that “outside awareness” of the world and tendency to take of his own body that you actually want to take out of a dressage horse who will be so focused on his rider’s aids and be willing to make very fine adjustments to himself inside a ring.
I don’t mean to sound hyperbolic or disparaging. Rather, I mean to bring up some of the subtle points of starting horses and basic commitments of different disciplines that might matter.
Remember, that with a young horse, you are teaching him so much about how to accept training and how to curb his instincts along with whatever specific aids you’d teach him.
I have done this. I had success with a colt who I sent to a western pro for his first 60 days before he came home where I rode him and hacked him out on the trails and, in 6 more months, a hunter pro started training him more formally.
I would take a green hunter horse to a good dressage pro in order to tune up my flat work and precision with him. But mainly, I’d be there to learn about how much better I could make his balance; I would not be there to get my horse to press into the bit always as seems to fundamentally important to so many dressage types. I don’t know if I would do it the other way around.
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I agree they can be great resources. Just make SURE they aren’t aimed at quickly getting the horse to seek too little or even no contact, as many of them do.
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Yup. Or, IMO, let someone but 30-90 days on it-- just enough that the owner can bring it home and ride it themselves in the casual, do-everything way that benefits ranch horses and all of them.
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I sent mine to an eventing program. He’s learning lots working out in fields and dabbling in a good mix of things. They really focus on forward and good contact.
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I agree with the posters that say there are lots of roads to Rome here.
Couple of years ago I saw photos that made me laugh. Very competitive GP jumping rider sent her young horses to a colt starter in Tucson. Photos of the 3 yr old Holsteiner being ridden in a western saddle next to the 14h quarter horse buddy… Mutt and Jeff! Really great job that the starter did with these big young horses: step on the platform, keep it together around the tarp, ground tie, … No hurry on any of it, and the jumpers got the idea that life’s not a big deal for them, either.
Best wishes finding the right place for your youngster.
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Until your local “cowboy” ties your horse up to a patience post and give it cervical arthritis. There is no one single best discipline to start a horse. It requires patience, good humor, no ego, no temper, good help, the right set-up and knowledge.
A GOOD young horse trainer will get your horse broke and desensitized to be handled, deal with stuff, go, stop and steer at various gaits inside and outside the arena without hurting or scaring them, period. It may take a while. It may not. No discipline is inherently better than another at initial starting, OP needs to get a lot of references locally but the bias against dressage is very weird imho. No-one is asking a 3yo to be mindless automaton or to collect or to do anything weird with contact.
fyi- the best started horse I have ever owned came off the track, she is hot hot hot and smart and sharp but is incredibly broke and has clearly never had a bad experience with people in her life. People bash the track starters every day online but a lot of young horse starters would have messed this horse up and thanks to them I have a very large border collie who communicates very well with her people and can be trained to do anything if you meet her halfway.
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It’s because so many of them are quick to go for contact and a first + level frame, when a hunter should be started without any of that.
I’m not bashing them, but it’s hard to go from an I1 ride at 9 am and cruising on little to no contact at 10am. It’s a hugely different ride. Better to go with the one who rides that little to no contact all day.
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And your bias against a “cowboy” is weird, imho 
You wanna bet? Just like you’re not wrong about SOME “colt starters” who tie horses high so they’re too tired to do anything but keep their head low, or to their tails to “teach him to give to pressure and bend”, SOME Dressage “trainers” will absolutely start pulling heads in on 3yos and that horse has a meltdown when someone gets on him and doesn’t even pick up the reins because he has no idea how to balance a rider without any of it
And in actual real life, and just like your bias against a cowboy, and your perceived bias against Dressage trainers, the reality of OT horses is that a LOT of them come OT with so much mental and physical baggage and no idea how to be a normal riding horse, which is just overall a worse situation than a totally unstarted horse.
Yes, a lot of young horse starters are very good at starting the clean slate horse, and not very good at starting with baggage. And, thankfully there are some trainers who can take most any OT horse and get him going well in a second career as a normal riding horse, at which point discipline-specific work can be done by someone else
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There are all sorts of ways to do things badly. If we get into stereotypes…How many 4yos in hunter programs are in draw reins? It’s not all loose reins. We are also buying a lot of jumping stock started in Europe where they do tend to drive their youngsters forward into contact early on. Or lunge in side reins as 3yo, etc. When a horse is not strong enough to carry themselves in an ideal way with that much contact, the consequence is that they are often ridden too deep for American taste at that age. But they will also go out hacking, get mileage at lower cost shows. And they may also not know what they are supposed to do when someone tries to ride them with an American feel and lighter seat. Yet no one says not to buy anything from Europe because of how they were started.
In any event, I know plenty of dressage riders who take this more confining approach (sometimes it’s way worse than the European style), whether the horse is 3 or doing FEI levels. And others who are good with young horses and are fair to them physically and mentally. I could say the same for “cowboy” types and h/j trainers.
Bottom line is, if you like this trainer’s program and the fact that it is close so you can be involved, there’s nothing about it being a dressage program that should inherently turn you off from using them for your hunter prospect to get the go, stop, steer, and the concept of contact and connection installed. A great hunter needs to be able to carry themselves with a quality canter and want to seek some contact.
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100%
As a hunter turned ranch horse girl, I can confirm there are more similarities between these two disciplines than most people realize.
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