At some point you’re just going to have to trust the trainer and rider. You’ve been through a few, and you are happy with this one and, I assume, the rider is happy with your horse. You can’t keep changing riders when things aren’t going as planned because then your horse is going to get confused with all the different ways riders are teaching and its hard to get a baseline established. Also, being too careful/not careful enough is a trait that some horses just have, regardless of breed or riding, and it may be that he needs a different career. Your horse looks nice, and if the rider is happy I would stick with him and see where it goes.
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This is a suggestion for getting your “eye” in for training TBs.
“Schooling Your Horse” by Vladimir Littauer is mostly concerned with training TBs and high TB blood horses to be hunters/jumpers. This method is a logical progression from the initial ride through having a well-trained hunter, jumper or hack.
“Training Hunters, Jumpers and Hacks” by Harry Chamberlin, who was the head of the US Equestrian team when it was still the business of the US Cavalry. His team won Gold for the Military (combined training, 3-Day) when the Olympics were in Los Angeles in the 1940s I think. These methods have been used successfully to train many TBs back when the US Cavalry was still the horse arm of the army.
There are many pictures and photographs in these books, and you should be able to get an idea of which results you should look for with training a TB for 3-Day type competitions.
Neither man wrote about using dressage for training, Chamberlin got up to the shoulder-in but he did not use collection. However most horses, trained by these methods should not have much trouble with learning dressage when they are fully trained, according to Chamberlin that takes two years from just broke to fully trained. Then the horse is ready for anything that its conformation will allow.
There is a BIG difference between OTTBs and warmbloods; but this is largely a result of the OTTB’s initial training. There is not much “breed difference” between a sport-bred TB and a WB; there may be a variety of traits among individual horses, but it’s hard to cast a wide generalization between the two groups. It’s easy to say TBs like a light ride, a more closed hip angle between fences, a soft rein…but not all TBs are like that, and many of them need to be gathered or packaged and ridden with the seat to maintain impulsion.
I’ve retrained LOTS of ottbs. I’ve also bred and started TBs for sport. I’ve started a couple WBs under saddle, too. I could say the TBs were a little quicker mentally, picked up on new things and had a better work ethic than the WBs, but in reality it was probably just a difference among the individual horses, not breed-specific. My unraced TBs, started correctly from Day 1, were simple to ride with ordinary principles, similar to WBs of the same stage in training. They were quite different from OTTBs in the first two years of re-training.
Good riding is good riding. All horses should be ridden at times long and low, and then encouraged up and out; just follow the training scale. Some horses need more stretching, some need more “up.” Some need Zen-like mental relaxation, others need a fire under their butt. The TB has generally been bred to have a self-starting engine, with its movement going in a forward (not Up) direction. But there are plenty of TBs who are quiet (lazy), and need to be ridden forward. There are plenty of WBs who are hot, sensitive, and bold. Ride the horse beneath you, not his pedigree. The trend of riding “against” the horse, driving the horse into a strong hand, is not correct regardless of breed; perhaps it is more tolerated in WBs than in TBs, but it can make any horse stiff in the back, lacking in hind engagement, etc.
TBs and WBs are not separate species. Assuming there is no race training to undo, they are more similar than they are different, but among individuals there may be huge variations. Some WBs are better built for the job than some TBs, and so may progress faster and farther than a horse who is less-suited.
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The two books Jackie Cochran recommended are an excellent idea. They were written by cavalry people for non-cavalry riders at the time the forward seat was being introduced to American riders and at a time when Thoroughbreds were THE high level sport horse in America. They are still just as relevant now as they were in the mid-20th century when they were written. You can’t go wrong with Littauer and Chamberlin.
Copies are still available but used, of course. They are worth every penny for someone who is training horses and riders.
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Thank you for mentioning the books. I a going to try and find them.
Thank you EventerAJ for sharing your experiences.
Luckily the present rider is very happy to have my boy in his string.
I have ordered both books.
If you wish to build a stallion profile as successful eventer then perhaps you should bite the bullet and send him to the UK?
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The short answer to your question is “no.”
I show a TB (also an OTTB) at the FEI GP level. There is zero difference between my TB “as a horse” and all of my warmbloods. There are individual differences from horse to horse in how they need to be conditioned/fitness, stamina, etc. But from a training perspective there is no difference, and even from that stamina side of things, there’s no difference between my TB and my more blooded WBs.
But something you mentioned in passing is a much bigger deal to me (though admittedly, from a showjumping perspective). A horse that isn’t careful (almost regardless of rider) at your TB’s level is very rarely going to suddenly change course and become careful. And while the occasional miracle (e.g. Snowman) does happen, it is rare enough that I’ve never seen it. If your trainers are telling you that your stallion doesn’t care about hitting fences I would listen. You cannot “make” a careful horse out of one who doesn’t care. Been there and done that enough times to not be willing to waste my time (and money) on a horse like that ever again. Rails matter in every sport. And with the added pressure of trying to market a stallion, that is an extremely difficult factor to introduce.
With that being said, rider/training program can make a major difference in any horse. But I believe a good rider/trainer is a good rider/trainer is a good rider/trainer. When you’re talking about a TB vs a WB, I don’t think you’re going to find any major differences beyond what you find between individual warmbloods. Especially given the fact that your guy was started the same way as all of the other horses over there.
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General Chamberlin also was responsible for the last US Cavalry Manual. In the section on training, which is laid out very clearly in sequences of steps from breaking all the way to training and conditioning the steeplechase horse, there is a statement that seems to me to provide the basis for training any horse.
In the training of remounts, great attention should be paid, first to their conditioning; second to their tranquility; and third to their training, properly speaking. Any system of training that neglects the conditioning or destroys the tranquility of horses, is defective.
If you can find the 1935 US Cavalry Manual, you will have a step by step guide to training the trainer as well as training the horse. If you can’t find one, I’ll scan mine and send it to you. It is not copyrighted. This is a book that was derived from a synthesis of all of the European cavalries’ training and riding principles and relies on hundreds of years of horse expertise.
The 1912 French Cavalry manual is online here:
http://www.natrc.org/documents/Judge…anual_1912.pdf
Unfortunately the US Cavalry Association no longer sells Volume 1 of the Cavalry Manual, which is the one you want. Gordon Wright’s version is far from the same and doesn’t include the step by step approach to training horses–it is limited to rider training.
The Cavalry Manual says that the breaking stage of a horse’s training should take about two years. By that, they mean producing a horse who goes well under saddle at all gaits and is well conditioned. After the breaking phase, the training phase begins. It says that by going slow, the horse will have a long useful life.
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In the end it turned out my horse was having back problems. He is getting physiotherapy.
Oh dear. Is it a structural back problem, a poorly fitting saddle problem, a rider seat problem, or what?
If you’d like, you can answer by PM. Or not alt all.
A lot of riders nowadays do not do enough gymnastics to really strenghten the whole back. Some backmuscles are overloaded while others are not being used.
Not an eventer but a dressage rider… I have 2 young horses, I started both of them. One is a typical warm blood, one is 50% TB, but looks like a TB. There s a world of difference between riding them. The warm blood is very sturdy and keeps his rhythm without any problems. The TB type has also a beautiful rythm but is not forgiving if anything goes wrong. Like rider fault, bad footing etc. She loves to work but is very very sensitive. It’s amazing to ride her because she is so soft to ride but as I said she is easy to mess up.
So I believe finding the right rider for a TB is much more important. And honestly it’s not good that he has back issues… Seems to me that there is a training issue…
Huh…? I can assure you there is more to strong, evenly muscled backs then gymnastics, which aren’t even universally done in all disciplines. They also can do more harm then good if done incorrectly, like being crooked and that comes from correct flatworkas well as conformation…
Conformation is a big factor as are past injuries that cause the horse not to be able to use its body correctly. The fact there is doubt about his carefulness might relate to this.
Has this horse had some health problems in the past? We haven’t see a picture of him since he’s been going under saddle, can you post something.? IIRC he’s not a big guy but don’t remember much else.
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OK, judging by the pictures of what I think is him and not a relative, shown over a high enough fence to actually create a jump? His forlegs are below the horizontal and often uneven and loose, he’s a leg hanger in a couple of them. He wants to roll over his shoulder because he’s not picking his forearms up high enough. You want to see horizontal or close to it. He may not be physically able to lift them that high.
His shoulder angle may not allow him to lfit the forearm high enough to easily clear the rail. If that’s so the hip angle will match and is also not going to generate much power in the back end and the only way he can compensate would be jumping higher and harder then he has to. That could lead to a sore back. He does look a bit long backed, his neck ties a touch lower then ideal and these also indicate a straighter shoulder angle that does not allow the forearm to be raised as high as needed for clean jumping. The back end willl match with the same issues. The higher the fences get, the harder he’ll have to work to get over cleanly. He might be topped out for his conformation.
One difference between training WBs and TBs is if they get sore, the WB will let you know right away. The TB will dig deeper and fight to keep going without letting on it’s hurting. You have to be a better listener to what the horse is trying to tell you when you got a TB selectively bred for 300 years to keep going or die trying. Obviously WBs with more blood will be closer to this mindset.
Know pedigrees can be fun but the pictures and videos of what this horse is right now, today, are going to attract far more interest then very hard to read pedigree charts for horses dead for a century. I would edit the pictures and videos only showing the best ones, there a few real cringe worthy pictures on there, we all have them but we don’t put them on a site for our breeding animals. Clean up all the fuzzy, hard to read pedigree charts, stick to a 5 generation chart, if somebody is interested they can research it back farther easily and free.
Far as trainers, Not seeing anything here that would make me run from this one. What is it you think is lacking on his part? The faulty Jumping does not appear to be rider initiated. IMO. And no idea what alternatives are available within your budget in your country or its nearby neighbors. Even if the ship is sinking, best to have a lifeboat ready before you abandon ship.
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The two books Vineyridge mentioned and which I bought DO give gymnastic exercises and so does the book by the trainer of Bill Steinkraus and George Morris. And by Reinard Klimke about eventing. And look at Michael Jung, he is quite fanatical with the dressage, as is Ingrid Klimke.
So are you lecturing your rider how to train your stallion?? . I agree with findeight the trainer looks ok… and your pictures on Instagram are confusing for people interested in your stallion. Look at pages of some Stalionowners and how they do it… show a nice video 3 great Pictures and the pedigree and maybe nice foal pictures of his offspring that’s it… people want space for their own imagination…
And about the training, your interest as an owner should be to keep your horse sound and healthy. Don’t push him too hard… TBs need more time then warmbloods
