ponytrouble
Member
On advice from our old YO, we bought a very lovely rising 5 year old for my 11 year old daughter. We were promised plentiful support . . . and then asked to leave the yard because a more financially appealing offer had been made to the YO who was out of stables. This has left us with a very sweet, but very young pony and, to be honest, I would never have bought such a youngster if I hadn't been assured of our YO's expert help.
But here we are . . . on a new yard and I feel we're going backwards. I'm able to ride her and we've been hacking out but the napping doesn't seem to be going away and when we hack alone she is routinely stopping or trying to head for home. I've taken to carrying a whip and using it, along with my voice, to convince her to continue but I worry that instead of building her confidence, I'm actually eroding it. We were lunging well but had a break of a fortnight and when we tried to lunge yesterday she was bucking and ignoring all voice commands (which we'd been gradually building up). I don't know if this is the start of the behavioural shift that can occur at 5, or whether it's a lack of consistency but the lunging scared me and I don't really know how to bring it back.
In all honesty, I feel quite overwhelmed. She is a calm and gentle soul who is relatively easy on the ground but has a tendency to plant when she's nervous, scared, lazy or simply not wanting to do the task in hand. All of which I appreciate are tendencies of young horses . . . but I'm not sure I'm cut out to reinforce the right messages to her. In six months she has brought my daughter's riding on SO much but she's unable to compete because the pony finds shows overwhelming and whilst jumping perfectly well at home, runs out at most jumps (we've had one successful outing so far) and I don't want to overwhelm her too.
I'm not even sure how much work is right for her (she's 5 next month). We've been hacking 2-3 times a week with a lesson as well. So there's usually 4 or sometimes 5 sessions a week, this will be a variety of hacking, a pony club rally or time in the school at home. Is this too much?? She gets time off every week and the hacks are probably 45 minutes long (walking and trotting).
I have advice from a number of experts - and they've all been very reassuring that this is normal but I worry that I'm going to harm this gorgeous pony simply by not knowing enough. I'm gutted our old YO changed her mind on the commitment she'd made to us and feel like I've been hung out to dry a bit. Any help or links to suitable literature would be much appreciated.
But here we are . . . on a new yard and I feel we're going backwards. I'm able to ride her and we've been hacking out but the napping doesn't seem to be going away and when we hack alone she is routinely stopping or trying to head for home. I've taken to carrying a whip and using it, along with my voice, to convince her to continue but I worry that instead of building her confidence, I'm actually eroding it. We were lunging well but had a break of a fortnight and when we tried to lunge yesterday she was bucking and ignoring all voice commands (which we'd been gradually building up). I don't know if this is the start of the behavioural shift that can occur at 5, or whether it's a lack of consistency but the lunging scared me and I don't really know how to bring it back.
In all honesty, I feel quite overwhelmed. She is a calm and gentle soul who is relatively easy on the ground but has a tendency to plant when she's nervous, scared, lazy or simply not wanting to do the task in hand. All of which I appreciate are tendencies of young horses . . . but I'm not sure I'm cut out to reinforce the right messages to her. In six months she has brought my daughter's riding on SO much but she's unable to compete because the pony finds shows overwhelming and whilst jumping perfectly well at home, runs out at most jumps (we've had one successful outing so far) and I don't want to overwhelm her too.
I'm not even sure how much work is right for her (she's 5 next month). We've been hacking 2-3 times a week with a lesson as well. So there's usually 4 or sometimes 5 sessions a week, this will be a variety of hacking, a pony club rally or time in the school at home. Is this too much?? She gets time off every week and the hacks are probably 45 minutes long (walking and trotting).
I have advice from a number of experts - and they've all been very reassuring that this is normal but I worry that I'm going to harm this gorgeous pony simply by not knowing enough. I'm gutted our old YO changed her mind on the commitment she'd made to us and feel like I've been hung out to dry a bit. Any help or links to suitable literature would be much appreciated.