Age to start driving

[Specialk]

At what age can a mini start driving? Is 2 years old too early? I always broke riding horses at age 2. I am a firm believer in ground work before then. Thoughts?

 

[BSharpRanch]

I am a firm believer in waiting till they are at least 3-4 before having them pull any weight, they need time to mature physically and mentally. Ground work is fine at just about any age. Just no pulling weight.

 

[Strangeaddiction]

We usually start lunging and putting a harness on around 2-2 1/2. We do a lot of ground work lunging, ground driving getting the horse comfortable with the harness etc. I'll start hooking them to a cart and ground driving as well. Depending on how they are doing I only get in the cart when they are ready mentally, training wise and physically. Hercules, my mini, was very easy to train and took everything in stride. He is also a very mature physically. I started getting in the cart with Hercules before he was 3 (he turned 3 end of February).

Long story short, it depends on the horse, but its never to early to do ground work.

 

[MajorClementine]

I waited until Clementine was 3 before asking her to pull any weight. After many years of working with horses I am a firm believer in no heavy labor until they are physically mature. I've seen too many physical problems occur that, I believe, could have been avoided by putting less stress on a young animal.

 

[Strangeaddiction]

Totally agree with everyone is saying about a horse being mature enough physically but I don't think that an "age" is the right answer, some horses take a very long time to mature, some don't I didn't start one pony until he was 4 1/2 because he just wasn't physically or mentally mature enough to handle it. I did do ground work with him but that's it. I would say 2 1/2 is the youngest I would ever think about putting any weight on, and only walking for a short period of time. I will hook them up to an empty cart and ground drive them

 

[MiniNHF]

We started bit intro and ground driving when they were 2 1/2... then depending on their progression they were introduced to the cart at 3.. now my stallion was a special case where he was not having being put in a cart at 3 and took us a whole year longer to get him into one at the age of 4.

 

[jeanniecogan]

i as mortified, when i found out that charlie was only 'coming 3'., when i was told he was 7 yrs. as time went on i realized he wasn't really strong enough to do long trail drives. this year he turned 4 yrs. and wow is he strong now.. so take your time and do lots of ground driving.have fun

 

[FurstPlaceMiniatures]

Depends on the horse, the trainer - everything. There's no magic number.

I've seen people wait wayyyy too long to start horses under saddle (5/6) then dive right in to galloping and jumping and ruin them anyway.

I think of it this way - a horse with no training or fitness broke to do anything over 3/4 would be like my fat butt trying to qualify for the Olympic track team. I'm 24. I'm out of shape but not obese or really all that fat by any standards. Just - I haven't ever really been 'conditioned.' I've never done anything athletic ever really. If I train for hours a day - I'm gonna die.

Then there's my brother. He has played ice hockey super seriously since he was 7, and internationally from the time he was 16. He's a *little* out of shape now, but if he tried to qualify for the Olympic track team he'd just have to 'learn how to run' and get back into shape. His body is used to the work outs.

Now, that's not to say you should run a youngster into the ground. Notice they don't even start really organized sports events until middle school? If I made a 14 year old try to qualify for the olympics, he's gonna die too!

I started my filly under saddle 2 weeks before her second birthday. If you think that's cruel; you can have her and not give her a physical job! She'd had a few months of heavy consistent groundwork before that. She didn't even know what a canter was or that rides lasted longer than 30 minutes until the end of her 2 yr old year though.