What age to start drafts?

isnt it just rotten when people put themselves first at the expense of anothers pain-animal or person doesnt matter to some.

Our mare is a pure clydesdale and was started in harness as a 2 yr old.

She is now 9 year old. I know of pure clydies who are a wee bit younger and were never broken and she looks considerably better.
I think it comes down to each horse - maturity and work load you are going to ask of them.
We have a welsh mare we did not start until she was 3yr old and she did not begin heavy work until she 5, she is very fine legged.

As I said it individual horses and workload that I think determines when they should be started. I think 2 is the earliest I would start a horse though.

Hi, I start ponying my drafts at 1 yr old next to another horse so they can learn wow, step up, etc, at 2 begin groung driving and putting saddle on anything to get them used to all the gear. ground drive weekly, draft horses do not stop growing until 5, when you feel they are very good at ground driving, start dragging tires with the harmness they I use a forecart, training cart, havin 3 to 4 people hook up the horse and have 2 people at the head with lead lines until they get used to it, this has worked for me, Pia wwwHightowercreekclydes.com

she bhas a 4 year old qh mare who is jumping 2.5 to 3 ft. she just turned 4 and was doing 2.5 with her

You wouldn't ask a 5 year old kid to go to the gym and go thru a really heavy and difficult work out, would you?

That's people don't understand. Really unfortunate for your friend's horse. The fact that she is dealing with a bucking horse is a training issue not the fact he was started so early. What she will have to deal with from starting him/her young is soundness issues in a few years.

its aweful. her poor mare sucks at jumping and she just pushes her. the drafty refuses to do any thing because she know she is too young. she does road riding and everything with the poor drafty. her brother who weighs 275 lbs rides the baby. and they are friends with a lady who owns a rescue

That is a really sad situation for the poor horse. If only we had the power to remove horses from stupid people.

Sorry that you have to be exposed to this.

she is my best friend but i just dont know why she is so stupid. i wish i could stop this. i have tryed telling her but she wont listen. the draftys former owner was worried about her and my friend mom said that she didnt want to break a big horse so start while they are young

It's really difficult when their is a lack of understanding as to basic horse anatomy and basic knowledge on horse training. Keep your heart together, and try to be there for your friend anyways:)

Okay, I'm really confused now. The vet was out last week to do surgery on Luna's eyelid (she was diagnosed with entropion in Jan.), but it turned out it corrected itself and surgery wasn't necessary. Anyway, I asked him about how big he thought Luna would get (she's at 14 hh now) and he said that she'll probably only grow another inch or two in height because...and I'm quoting him..."at a year old a horse is 90 percent of its overall height and 60 percent of its overall weight". He also believes that she really is haflinger/standardbred and not part belgian. *sigh*

I didn't show him a picture of Luna's mom, but described her and he said, "yes, that sounds like a haflinger". I'm also posting this in the Horse Breeds section and am going to see if I can get my parents to email me a current pic of Luna's mom.

What do you think about the growth thing, though?