[chika1235]

i have been breaking my first colt this year. i have taught him lunging,bathing,standing for farrier, moving hindquarters,stopping,backing up,desensitizing,going over ground poles,and ive tacked him up a few times. this week was the first time ive ever rode him. hes a really laid back colt. not a lot of things can get him exited so i hopped up on him bareback with a rope halter and lead rope and i rode him for the first time on friday. he walked,trotted,loped a couple of steps,and i backed him up.no acting up at all. the next day i did the same exept with tack and i loped him a lot more and i went over ground poles with him. and today i did the exact same thing but i lunged him beforehand. i rode him with a snaffle bit when i rode him with tack as its like stopping a train when there isnt anything in his mouth. when there is something in his mouth tho all i have to do is tell him to whoa. he has an extreme rocking horse lope tho witch for me is hard to ride.(like the western pleasure horses do) as he is my first quarter horse. he will turn 2 at the end of this month. i dont think im hurting him tho because im only 104 pounds. any help on what i should be working on undersaddle with him would be great!

oh and by the way he did buck with me 2-3 times but that was my fault as i kept asking him to lope when he already was.i am going to get my aunt to take pics of me riding him tommorow evening. will post pics!!!

 

[ChingazMyBoy]

From what I've heard *I've never trained a colt/filly*. It sounds like your rushing him a bit, Aren't the first few rides just walking around with the horse getting use to your weight on their back?

 

[Kayty]

Good on you he sounds like a lovely colt.

As for breaking, you're lucky that he is such a cruisey little bloke. A lot of horses will get very confused and worried about being asked to walk trot canter, back up and go over trot poles in their first couple of rides.
You're far better off to try and fine tune the very basics before you try to get speed and 'tricks'.
In walk, make sure he will get off your leg, the you have perfect breaks and steering. Then try in trot. I wouldn't be cantering him until he has been under saddle for at least a few weeks.
He needs to build up new muscles that he's never had to use before, and learn to take your weight on his back as well as trying to keep his own balance.
Often you can spoil a young horse that is as willing as your guy is, by rushing things. Even if they offer it to you, eventually they will fizzle out and you can really change their temperament and make a sour, grumpy beast of a once willing and trainable horse.

 

[chika1235]

he was already used to me on his back. since last fall ive been getting on him bareback but ive never asked him to move at all since friday. i didnt know what he would do if i asked him to move.

 

[Kayty]

Sitting on him bareback with him standing still does not get him used to balancing himself with you on him, and does not build up any muscle to help him carry your weight.
This is all done through lunge work, long reining and gentle work under saddle.

 

[chika1235]

Good on you he sounds like a lovely colt.

As for breaking, you're lucky that he is such a cruisey little bloke. A lot of horses will get very confused and worried about being asked to walk trot canter, back up and go over trot poles in their first couple of rides.
You're far better off to try and fine tune the very basics before you try to get speed and 'tricks'.
In walk, make sure he will get off your leg, the you have perfect breaks and steering. Then try in trot. I wouldn't be cantering him until he has been under saddle for at least a few weeks.
He needs to build up new muscles that he's never had to use before, and learn to take your weight on his back as well as trying to keep his own balance.
Often you can spoil a young horse that is as willing as your guy is, by rushing things. Even if they offer it to you, eventually they will fizzle out and you can really change their temperament and make a sour, grumpy beast of a once willing and trainable horse.

i do not know how to teach him to get off the leg but i think i know someone who canhelp me.he stops really good when hes in a snaffle. often all ill have to do is say whoa.thnx for the info! im going to take it slow on him. he is the smartest horse ive ever worked with. he learned half of the stuff i taught him in the first 2 weeks i had him! and he was never handled until he was bought by me! he loves to learn witch is a huge bonus to me!

 

[ChingazMyBoy]

May I ask how advanced your riding is, have you previously broken in horses? How did they turn out, you seriouly need to think about these things.

 

[AztecBaby]

Is it P.K. ?

I thought he was only 18 months, that's what it says on his page.. ?

Anyway sounds like you going ok with him

 

[Kayty]

i do not know how to teach him to get off the leg but i think i know someone who canhelp me.he stops really good when hes in a snaffle. often all ill have to do is say whoa.thnx for the info! im going to take it slow on him. he is the smartest horse ive ever worked with. he learned half of the stuff i taught him in the first 2 weeks i had him! and he was never handled until he was bought by me! he loves to learn witch is a huge bonus to me!

You DEFINITELY need to know how to teach im to get off the leg. It can become dangerous, or at least extremely frustrating later down the track, when you have a horse who doesn't get off your leg.

They learn by pressure/discomfort and release/comfort.
So with a young horse, I like to first teach them voice aids on the lunge, to the point where they will stop the second you say 'woah' and trot away as soon as you say 'terrrrrot'. Once they have voice aids perfectly down pat, then you can move that to work under saddle. Put your leg on in conjuction with an upward voice aid so that he associates the two until you no longer need the voice aid to back up the leg.

I would certainly get someone who has broken horses and knows how to at least work on the basics before you do any more work under saddle with him. AT 2 years old his brain is like a sponge. It will absorb everything and funnily enough, they tend to soak up the bad habits faster than the good ones and then take 3 times to effort to remove the bad habit and replace it with a good one.
With young horses you absolutely have to know what you're doing or you can literally ruin a perfectly good horse.

 

[chika1235]

May I ask how advanced your riding is, have you previously broken in horses? How did they turn out, you seriouly need to think about these things.

ive been riding for 5+ yrs now. ive never broke a horse fully but almost all of my horses i got were very green when i got them. they all turned out o.k.

 

[chika1235]

Is it P.K. ?

I thought he was only 18 months, that's what it says on his page.. ?

Anyway sounds like you going ok with him

yes its p.k. the 18 months was an estimate when i was waiting for his papers to get to me.

 

[chika1235]

You DEFINITELY need to know how to teach im to get off the leg. It can become dangerous, or at least extremely frustrating later down the track, when you have a horse who doesn't get off your leg.

They learn by pressure/discomfort and release/comfort.
So with a young horse, I like to first teach them voice aids on the lunge, to the point where they will stop the second you say 'woah' and trot away as soon as you say 'terrrrrot'. Once they have voice aids perfectly down pat, then you can move that to work under saddle. Put your leg on in conjuction with an upward voice aid so that he associates the two until you no longer need the voice aid to back up the leg.

I would certainly get someone who has broken horses and knows how to at least work on the basics before you do any more work under saddle with him. AT 2 years old his brain is like a sponge. It will absorb everything and funnily enough, they tend to soak up the bad habits faster than the good ones and then take 3 times to effort to remove the bad habit and replace it with a good one.
With young horses you absolutely have to know what you're doing or you can literally ruin a perfectly good horse.

yep ive got 2 horse people to help me if i need it. one is the one who sold him to me who lives down the road from me. and the other one is the one who sold beauty to me and he is also related to me(papaws cusin) but he primarily works with gaited horses. i dont say trot or walk with my horses as ive found out with my tn walker that when i say that they just learn to tune it out. thats why i cluck to them. one for walk,two for trot,3-4 for lope. and whoa for stop of course.ive also got a good natural horseman to go to named hank hepperly.(he won the 100 day mustang challege thing)

 

[Kayty]

If clucking works for you then thats great!! I like to use words/noises that sound very different when training voice aids to avoid confusing the horse. If you use a series of clucks, horses can't count and he may not be able to differentiate between the gaits that you want, particularly when you start doing harder work such as walk-canter.
That's why I like to use 'walk' 'trot' and 'canter' and 'woah'. They all sound different so are easily differenciated by the horse.

If they don't listen to the voice aid, I will back it up with the lunge whip by flicking it towards their hind quarters. Doesn't take much for them to comply with the voice aids rather than have a whip invade their space.

 

[EllaEnchanted]

If you thought he was only 18 months old why were you getting on him? Not trying to be rude or anything and I know you dont weigh a whole lot, but you can really hurt a horse by riding it too hard too young. Im breaking my guy in June he will be 2 and a bit, and we probably wont canter until August.

 

[dressagexlee]

he will turn 2 at the end of this month.

...Please tell me that I'm not reading this right.

It's not so much joint closure that you have to be thinking about. It's back closure. On a finer built horse, this would probably happen at 4. I find it absolutely appalling to even be riding a long yearling (or even an early 2/2 and a half year-old), even for a short while. But at all the paces? Think about the horse's soundness. You may not see problems now, but in the future things will start showing up and limit his years of sound rideability. Have you ever considered the fact that he isn't acting up because he is physically incapable of doing so?
At this age, I would be doing ground-work, light longe-lining, and ligh lunging. Teaching him pressure and release, beginning work on light stretches and flexions, getting him used to saddles and bridles, and fine tuning his ground manners. All things that will get a horse well prepared for a rider, and make the experience less confusing for him, more safe for us, and therefore more easy to train. He is still small and easily influenced. Use this oppurtunity to teach him important skills and draw the respect boundries.
Don't use this time to put him through things that he isn't fit enough for, isn't mentally prepared to take, and isn't physically matured enough to take. Even though his body is small and grows quicker than a larger horse, I would honestly not be riding this horse w/t/c until he's 3 and a half. Late 2 year-old or early 3 year-old at earliest.

 

[wild_spot]

I'm breaking a mare who is 5 - And I just walked for about 2 weeks, and have been working on perfecting walk/trot for about a month and a half now. I would be going even slower with such a baby.

 

[southerncowgirl93]

You shouldn't be cantering this early. Wait until he's 3 at least. Preferably four. Listen to what dressagexlee said.

 

[princesshoagie]

And Hank is not such a great trainer actually. He had a horse in training that he was using a slow twist bit for ground work and actually cut the horse's tongue, then he didn't even call the vet or owner for two days!! The cut was bad enough to require stitches, but by the time the vet was called it was too late. Be careful relying on him for training!

 

[kassierae]

I think you need to back off and work on ground work and maybe light walking rides for a little while. I started my gelding at 25 ish months(so 2 years, 1 month), but I took it very slow. He is my first project, and so far has done very well. For the first few weeks I only did walking and a very little bit of trotting, mainly working on steering. Later on in the fall I asked for a lope on the long side of my ring, maybe two-three times. Then he got the winter off with a few bareback rides. This past summer he got gelded, and I continued the light work, adding a little bit more loping but not much at all. This year, as a four year old, he starts his real work. He will get introduced to the barrel pattern and begin more loping work than usual.

It's great that you are proud of yourself, but I think you should give your guy a few more months at the very least to grow up a bit.

 

[SeWHC]

You are not only riding, but loping a horse that isn't even two yet? You've been getting on this horse since last fall? So it was like 1.5 years old? Yeesh... that is very, very young.

I hate starting horses that are younger than 3, and there are some 3 year olds that I won't start because they still look like babies and clearly aren't physically capable of carrying a rider.

Please reconsider riding your horse until it is say.... 2.5 years old? Now that it has a foundation on it, why not let him have some time off to mature?