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Re: [RC] Starting a new horse - Chris PausI can only tell you from my own experience, but I'm working with my third horse to get her ready for competition. I have found it takes about two years to get a horse really trail savvy and competition savvy...What you probably want to know is at what point do you introduce the horse to competition. That's probably different for each horse.
Right now, i'm working with my nearly 4Yo mare. I saddle trained her last year as a 3YO. I've tried to find lots of situations for her where there's activity, other horses, vehicles, solitary time, etc. She's now pretty good on the trails. Very steady. Good on hills. Not prone to spooking at new things. Uses her head for thinking. But she still hasn't had some experiences. We're still working on water crossings. She hasn't camped out yet. She hasn't experienced a pack of horses taking off down the trail at 6 a.m....She needs to work on maintaining a good trot. She hasn't cantered much yet under saddle. While she's really good at so many things, I just don't feel she's mentally or physically ready yet for the challenge of a competition. I plan to take the next year to work on fitting up and getting her ready for maybe competition in 2005 as a 5YO. And then, I plan to ride at the back of the pack and let her just get used to everything before
trying to really be competitive with her. So there's two years...
I have an 8YO gelding that I started lightly on CTR two years ago.He was green broke when I got him as a 6 YO. We worked first on general training and then started trail work. He needed a lot of muscle building. he was scrawny. I used hill work to beef him up and now he looks like a different horse. He did one CTR his first year with me, and last year he did 4 CTRS and one AERC - LD ride. I think he was ready to move up to endurance, but dang it, slipped in the pasture during winter and sprained a suspensory ligament on his left rear leg.. so now we're back to slow work and rehabbing that leg, which will set back his competition.
My first distance horse I bought as a 10 YO. I entered him in a CTR three months after I got him. We did well, won the HVY division, but then it went down hill. He could do it physically, but we really needed to work on the mental fitness part of it. His first year, he did an LD and 3 CTRs. The secondyear, we did more CTRs and two endurance rides. Then I realized I had asked too much too soon. We went back to training. Took six months off and took classical dressage lessons. The next year, we had a much better year and now, 8 years later, I have a fairly solid and reliable campaigner.
Long story short, if she were my horse, I'd spend the first year building her base of conditioning and not compete. Work on her fitness and on any "issues" she may have. Then assess her phsyically and mentally for competition next year. Be honest with yourself about where she is. I can tell you that you will regret it if you ask too much too soon, but few people have ever regretted waiting til a horse was really ready.
chris
Patti Pankiewicz-Fuchs <scubagirl817@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"A good horse makes short miles," George Eliot Chris and Star BayRab Acres http://pages.prodigy.net/paus
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