US sellers won't freejump?

[mzm_farm]

RyTimMick/Tim,

Your statement I was responding to :
“I don’t need to check my attitude, you were trying to draw a moral equivalence between starting yearlings under saddle and running them hard and free jumping a 2 year old through a chute a few times a week. It added zero to the conversation.”

Is quite different then:
" As far as free jumping, this should not be done several times a week with a stall bound 2 year old that has not had any fitness. I am talking about few times over a month, and only a few times through the chute each time. So someone who has be doing this for many years, and have never had one have one with issues, I would say there is no risk. I also know how much work a youngster can do, and I don’t lunge my 2 years in a circle over and over again, which I see all the time. So this is a straw man argument in my opinion."

Keep in mind that ALL levels of buyers/breeders are reading this. If you are commenting as an expert, clarity of what you have in mind is appreciated. Jumping several times over a month is very different then several times a week!

Ammys want sound horses, whatever level of riding they end up pursuing.

[RyTimMick]

Hi MZM,

I would never present myself as an expert, but I have many years experience with youngsters and free jumping. To be clear, I recommend running a 2 year old through a chute around 6 times. This should be done around 4 times over a 4-6 week period. I also recommend warming the horse up each time. Thats it. As I to wish my youngsters to be sound regardless of level why would I do something that would hurt them? To clarify what I said above, I was counting the times through the chute in the generalization of times a week. Casall won his last GP at 18, he was free jumped as a 2 year old. Clarimo retired at 17, jumped as a 2 year old, and I can go on and on. You can not show me where a horses career has been shortened by free jumping as a 2 year old. Conversely, nearly every GP horse in the ring today was free jumped as a 2 year old, because that is the standard. Cristallo retired at 20, he was free jumped as a 2 year old. There is just a mountain of evidence to support this. The issue, which I think you brought up in your post is, that there are plenty of ignorant horse owners who will overwork their youngsters creating problems. That is why I mentioned lunging yearlings on a 20 meter circle over and over again. That is done a lot, and so is starting them before 3.5yrs old. These practices for sure will cause soundness issues, but are generally done by people who don’t know better.

[Go_Fish]

I’ve seen a lot of two-year olds that looked fantastic down the chute and turned out to be lousy jumpers under saddle. You can set up a chute to make a bad jumper look good. I may want to see a horse jump through a chute as a youngster, but how they jump in one wouldn’t make or break the sale for me.