Would you ride a horse that bucks?

[SuzieQNutter]

I agree with others, horses react to different riders. I had a palomino gelding who only half heartedly bucked with me. At a clinic a friend rode him. She had only ever ridden school horses He did the half hearted buck and whatever he felt from her he went on to rodeo bucking and he meant it. He had never done anything like that prior.

One place I was working I came back to work and a coworker had been bucked off Venus. I was perplexed. There was no way this coworker was good enough to ride Venus, what was she doing to be riding her?

Another coworker told her she could ride her.

I went to the other coworker and asked why she had out the other coworker on Venus.

Venus is quiet for me.

You can ride, so she goes quietly for you. Could you not tell that she would not go quietly for someone who cannot ride.

No.

So a high up rider being paid to ride, so you could say a pro rider could not tell that that horse was not suitable for another rider.

You have to trust that your pro can see what I could see or what the other coworker could not see.

[js]

How is your confidence? If you got dumped would it make you leery of riding this horse in the future or riding in certain situations? If the buck is more like a crow hop rather than a big buck I wouldn’t hesitate but a horse that really bucks hard and intends to unseat you, no.

[Pally]

When I first started grooming and hacking some of the horses under my care, I had no confidence riding a buck simply because I hadn’t had enough (or really any) practice doing it successfully. Luckily, one of the horses I had the opportunity to ride a lot was the most wonderful and well-schooled creature and also bucked a little. They were fresh, feel-good bucks that were pretty much as soft and comfy as his canter strides. I gained a TON of confidence in riding a buck by sitting through his little bouncies. After that, I felt pretty unrattled by future horses who would throw the odd fresh buck, stubborn buck, please call your vet buck. I even got rocket launched a couple of times (and was luckily unhurt) but the successes were more frequent so I wasn’t too bothered by it.

So that is to say, if you at a stage of ambitiously trying to grow your riding, you don’t have specific negative experience making you wary of buckers, and it’s fairly confirmed that the bucks are unlikely to unseat anyone… maybe it would be a way to add that to your skill set. But that seems really unlikely. If you’re an adult with life bills to pay, who rides to enjoy it, wants to improve but has realistic goals, and maybe has had some bad experience with buckers, then keep searching.

[Bluey]

Our riding center received two truck loads, 14-15 feral horses every late June, just caught and started them and had them ready as school horses by September.
We kept some ourselves, sold most to other riding centers.

As a teenager I was the test pilot in our feral horse training, after having started a handful of gentle colts, that rarely acted up or bucked.
The riding instructor would do the initial handling, showing us how all along, wish we had videos then, wonderful teacher.
Once gentle enough on the longe line, he would give me a leg up and I was test dummy/passenger up there and followed his instructions.
Generally we had the horses, males still stallions and some maybe 8-9 years old, gentle enough to get on by the second or third day, some we took longer.

We thought we had a good system all around, the idea was, a good job is one where horses learn without fireworks, if something went wrong, horse would buck, it was our fault, we overdid it past it’s comfort or we had not prepared horse well enough.

There were a few exceptions, the one time at the first ride, horse properly prepared we thought, trainer gave me a leg up but somehow horse shied forward and I landed, on my knees, on the horse’s rump, holding onto the cantle of the saddle, on a scared horse bucking.
Instructor had the longeline short and shut him down right away, but I was launched off first buck.
We regrouped, worked with the horse again, realizing we had found a hole in our training, we had not been desensitizing the back of the horse enough, we needed to work on that longer.
Before getting all the way up, we extended our body work do more on the hind end.

There were always lessons we learned all along, the instructor always making a point everyone was learning all the time, from every thing, being observant what made a good horse person and better horse trainer.

Not sure the average student needs to be learning to handle bucking horses?

Sometimes, horses buck because it is their natural expression when happy, when stressed and when startled and when hurting, of course, always keeping that in mind.
Also as trained on purpose, as rodeo bucking horse, or trained by mistake to buck, as when saddling first time and hazing horse loose around to “buck it out”, a common practice that never made sense. It lets a horse practice a habit, bucking, we definitely don’t want in a riding horse.

I would think the OP’s trainer has evaluated the horse, maybe feels it’s bucking is something the OP can handle, or learn to handle.
Even then, the OP has to ask the trainer, maybe watch the horse under someone else to decide if handling a horse that is known to buck at times is something she wants to learn.

[FindingSpirit]

Personally? No. And not on a lease. It would be different if I owned the horse and had more say in vice management, and more time to spend. I also don’t compete anymore. I’ve ridden an extensive ‘no go but will buck, crowhop, neck down and will kick if you ask for the canter’ lesson horse that ruined my confidence for a while. If you are afraid of this behavior, why subject yourself to it. You’d need time to get over it, but do know it can seriously shake your foundation for a long time if you do not.

[TheHunterKid90]

You are an amateur and horses are a luxury and your fun….trainers don’t even want to be paid to ride buckers, why does your trainer think you should PAY for the experience?
Hard no for me. It only takes one fall. My wake up call fall was 18 months ago and I am still not the same. As a trainer, I now reserve the right to say, no amount of money is worth the risk of a horse with known dangerous behavior….
Keep searching for your unicorn, you’ll find him!

[Pennywell_Bay]

OP- we have a long term “free” lease pony that we only have because he has a buck. He is well known by the eventing community for his very special buck that his excellent rider owner even has come off. It’s not the porpoise or rocking horse- it’s bronc.

Now- we show hunters and he has never EVER done this trick in front of our trainer or at a show. He thinks this guy is the bomb (and he doesn’t like ponies. ) pony always jumps, he has been a great teacher for my kid, but he is a known bucker.

I will say even my saint will throw in a buck after a fence if I miss more than twice in a lesson. So ANY horse of course can. But there’s a huge difference in the pony who is TRYING (and will) get you off and one that does it rarely.

It’s too much time and money to worry if the horse is a habitual bucker and only you can make that decision (my kid still rides this guy, and he has taught her SO MUCH BUT- we know it’s there).

[Alterration]

I would, but generally I sit bucks well. I do not sit the “sit’n’spin” moves well and I despise rearers. It may be because I have a particularly long torso and that makes the buck relatively easy to sit and the spin damn near impossible.

But whether I would do that or not is irrelevant to whether you would or should. You’ve indicated that you’re already nervous about it. Not a great way to start a relationship with a horse.

My vote is no.

[peedin]

No.

[AnastasiaBeaverhousen]

It sounds to me like your trainer wants you to be her crash test dummy.

And not only that, she wants YOU to pay HER to be her crash test dummy.

That would be a big Nooooo.

I get it that sometimes trainers have to convince students that they have the skills to handle non pushbutton horses.

But a good trainer doesn’t put a student on a horse that the student can’t cope with emotionally.

A good trainer spends the time wisely by using lesson time to build up the correct conditioning physically and mentally.

The student learns balance and security in the saddle and that builds up self confidence and assertion.

Okay, off my soapbox.

Good luck OP.

[Spudsmyguy]

I had one horse that when he bucked it was so high, he actually had hang time in the air. Luckily no one was on him at the time, he was just acting stupid. I gave him away to someone who just wanted a pasture pet.

Forgot to add - I leased a horse that if you used the whip on him he would buck but it was just porpoise bucking, it made me laugh.

[tohorse]

Disclaimer here that while I’m no rodeo cowboy as a teenager I rode pretty much anything and everything, including buckers and rarely fell. As a result I have pretty excellent reflexes and balance even as a stiffer, less brave version of my old self.
To me it would come down to what kind of buck? I don’t mind the so happy/excited after a jump that the horse pulls head down and throws the hind up kind of buck. What I like to avoid is angry, reactive kind of buck e.g. revolting against a spur/crop or doing something difficult or any other kind of temper tantrum. My mare can act “pissy”, but she rarely bucks. She’s more of moves/jumps out sideways, backing up kind of tantrum. Some people don’t mind - it’s up to you.
What I will not sit on again are horses that buck/fight until they fall. This applies to both buck and rear. My worst injuries have always without fail happened in a scenario where I fall with the horse. If a horse has the sort of buck/rear habit that he doesn’t even care for its own safety, then it’s a hard no for me.

[amb]

I’m not sure which side I’m even arguing here, but here’s some perspective.

I am two weeks from the end of a long lease of a big dumb wonderful gelding with a bucking habit. There was a period of nasty bucking due to saddle fit, since corrected, but he will always always buck for the first couple of right-lead canter transitions of the day and occasionally when asked to work if he don’t wanna. It’s a fairly easy buck to sit and push through and (once saddle fit was corrected) it doesn’t continue and he goes happily (and sadly due to saddle travails I know all too well how he rides when he’s in pain vs happy), and we’ve had some amazing times together, and he’s got huge potential (fancy warmblood type, just turned 8), but he’s also got a decent spin-and-run spook in him and I’m just so done with his shit. I still cry thinking about the end of the lease, because when it is good it is so so very very good. I’m trying to remember how many times I’ve even come off, it might have been only once (but that was an ER trip), but I always always need to be fully engaged and pushy when I’m on, and some days I would not like to have to work quite that hard for what’s supposed to be fun. If I was more ambitious (or, really, not also holding down a day job) and could be on him and keeping his head in it every day it would be a lot easier–when I have taken a week off and actually ridden every day he’s been a lot better.

A while ago my event horse was an OTTB with serious (graded stakes winner, Maryland Hunt Cup contender serious) talent with a nasty dirty stop who probably ended up at New Holland because he dumped one too many jockeys into the timber. He was a complete blast to ride, I came off him more times than I can count, but he eventually taught me how to ride a spook really well.

I have learned so so much from both of these horses, and I don’t regret my years with either one, but ya know, here I am ending this lease anyway. As my trainer is wont to say, “pick your battles”, and I’m tired of this one. (Anybody in New England with a big horse for sale (I’m 6’4"), decently forward, decently sane, happy to live outside, suitable for hacking out, low-level eventing, and adjacent activities, feel free to drop me a note!)

In the end I suppose my outlook is that you can learn a lot from a bucking dufus but it can sure as heck be a nasty slog, too.

[Paisley_Pony]

My story is similar to this. I rehabbed an underweight horse who turned back into a nasty bucker when she was healthy again. She was not my first horse that bucked, but she was my last. I’m too old to bounce.