Training a filly to ride?

i know its amazing starting your first horse, i mean, i did it myself and he turned out awesome. i’d recommend you first get her solid at round pen work, i always used verbal cues. (cluck to trot, kiss to canter “walk” to walk and of course, whoa) then when you get on, they can still know what your asking them to do. its good to work with a trainer whos had some experience in the area. it will help both you and your filly out a bunch, but if you cant afford to meet with someone, have a knowledgeable friend(or family member) come over and help for your first couple rides. that way they’re there if something happens, and also, they can help direct your filly and get her to move her feet, to help show her what you want her to do.

i personally believe this is a good age to start working with them, as long as you keep everything slow adn dont push her to much. just remember BE PATIENT. if you confuse your filly and then get frustrated, it will only set you back that much further. work slowly and keep her learning and wanting to learn. once the horse becomes frustrated with you, she may not want to listen anymore…and that would be dangerous for both of you.

please feel free to email me if you have any questions. i’d love to help! [email protected]

-Jordann

I disagree with PRS, for a stock horse breed with decent conformation 2.5 is old enough to be started. If she was a warmblood, arab, or draft horse (breeds that generally mature slower) I would say wait, but a QH will be fine. We start them at 2.5-3 for a month or 2, enough that they can steer decently at a walk, trot, and canter, then give them the winter and early spring off to mature and develop. Unless she’s underdeveloped, or you’re riding her on very hard ground you should be fine, just don’t jump.

For getting her to move forward, it helps to have someone riding another horse in front of you that she can “latch on to.” Not only will she get used to being ridden around other horses, but the other horse provides her a feeling of safety.

Get someone to lead her forward as you give her the cues to move forward. It won’t take her long to figure out what you are asking for. Since you have already made comments about no bad comments or what ever I assume you know that you probably shouldn’t be riding your baby horse. I wonder though… did you know that the last bones to mature in your horses body is the spine and that is not until she is 6 years old? Yep no matter that you are a relative light weight you can still do damage. Read this very informative article written by one of the leading experts on equine skeletal development: http://www.equinestudies.org/ranger_28/ranger_pi…

I consider this article required reading for anyone raising or training young horses.

Source(s): 17 years horse owner, 48 years horse addict

If you didn’t want bad comments about you riding a horse under 3 years old why did you put her age? It would have been so easy to just write that your filly didn’t understand the cues to go forward.

People will judge you and they have sound reasons for doing so. You can’t give enough details about what you’re doing that they can draw a 1% adequate picture to solve your problem. You’ve only given enough information and details to draw a picture of a person starting a horse who shouldn’t be starting one. You’d have been better off leaving out the details and just stating you were having a hard time getting your young horse to move forward. it’s the details about what you’re doing that will get you hung in judgementalism by others.

so – I won’t tell you that you’re doing wrong because I haven’t the details to make you out as a ninny – but I will tell you you’ve set yourself up to be judged one.

1. it depends upon the breed of horse and physical fitness as to whether the animal SHOULD be ridden at all at 2 1/2 years. Stock horses like quarter horses are routinely started earlier than 3 – with limitations. Arabs are not physically sound enough to start at 2 1/2 – they mature slower. So if you’re on an Arab, YES 2 1/2 IS too young to be on, I don’t care how light your are or what tack you’re using. if she’s a stock-type horse, 2 1/2 may not be too young if you are only riding a short time and taking it easy.

2. You state that the horse doesn’t go forward – this is a key component to the starting process. If you don’t know how to communicate with the horse, you shouldn’t yet be one her. Everything you teach a young horse to do when on it’s back SHOULD be well known from on the ground. You SHOULD be able to move her feet all 4 directions – frontwards, backwards, left and right – all 4 of them from the ground before you get on her. You transition your cues from on the ground to on her back later. So your first step is to get off the horse and go back to ground work – give her all the same cues from the ground as she’d get while you are mounted. Ground driving is a VERY good way to teach this – two long cotton lines thru the stirrups is an easy way to work or using a surcingle for training is often what’s done with English horses. However, before you do this, the horse must be VERY accepting of ropes around its legs and behind it’s rump. You must first do the work of getting her used to those things before ground driving – then after she’s controlled well after many sessions of ground driving can you mount up then and start again.

Keep in mind – you are building a language between a human (yourself) and a deaf and dumb, mute, non-human being. You must start with small cues getting her to move just one step forward, releasing and rewarding that action with praise and relaxation then asking again using the EXACT same body movement in the exact same process – in this way she begins to understand that a certain set of movements means you want her to move forward. Kicking her is bad – what does that do to her? it tells her that rather than your taking patience and teaching her you’ll just pummel her painfully for no reason. If she’s not doing what you expect, then she doesn’t understand what you’re asking.

Consider she can feel a fly land on her side – a teeny tiny gnat. She can feel your heartrate when you are sitting on her. She can feel your breathing rate, your balance – all these things in addition to what you know you’re doing iwth your legs, feet, heels and hands. she must turn all of those sensations into a language she can understand. so I’d suggest you work slowly. When you wish her to stand quietly or stop, think ‘wet rag’ and take a deep breath and relax every muscle (including the heart) to signal “stop” – only engage the bit after you’re completely relaxed if she hasn’t stopped and only enough as required to get her to stop – the release of pressure on the reins when you put them down and your relaxation is when she goes “Oh, that’s what she wanted, she watned me to stop”. Now you’ve built a language. From there, try sitting very calmly then pick up the reins without engaging her head, bring your body energy up – tense the spine, position the legs, squeeze with buttocks and thighs,down the calves, put the hands forward so there’s NO pressure on the reins and cluck to her. Her movement forward allowing her to amble as she wants then your relaxation and reward when she stops tells her waht you expect. She;ll think “OH, when she’s relaxed and quiet, she wants me to be so too, when she brings up her energy, then I need to start doing something”.

At 2 1/2 – her attention span is VERY short, her desire to ‘work’ rather than play or eat or stand quietly is very low – she shouldn’t be expected to do much at all and not worked with for more than about 20 minutes.

Get on her and have someone lead her (so she’ll have the halter under the bridle), when you squeeze your legs have the person leading ask her to move forward. Eventually she’ll get the relation between rope and legs and you won’t need the leader. it should only take a few times.

well, she is actually a good age to start, your doing good by taking it slow with her. When you wanna make her start walking try starting by using slight pressure, but i wouldnt pull on her headstall b.c that will confuse her. Just kiss to her and move a lil bit with ur body weight..be patient she will learn..Have fun with ur filly!

PRS is exactly right. 2 1/2 is too early for saddle breaking no matter how light you are. And it sounds like you really already know that in your heart.