Am I letting my horse down?

Persephone

Persephone

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I bought Star last february. She is a lovely horse, good jumping lines and perfect temperament. I bought her to compete but feel we are not ready. My instructor came to looke at her with me. He is very experienced and said she was green, but honest and that we would be fine together. We have lessons at least once a week where we work on her schooling with a bit of jumping. Her jump is no problem, what we are working on is her balance and establishing her paces and we even don't have a 100% correct canter lead established yet as she had only hunted before. As I have had her for 10 months now I am getting a lot of personal criticism for not competing her yet. I don't feel I want to go anywhere and compete until we are consistently working at a good level at home. Other people are telling me to learn by my mistakes whilst competing. The thing is I don't want to go out and just survive a round as I feel it will set us both back. I want to go out and do it well. Do people think I'm being a bit slow getting started? Or should I stick with my slow and sure approach? Help I need some advice!

Jo x
 
No, I think you're doing the right thing - For YOU!
People progress at different speeds, and it's not like you're letting her go to waste and just chucked her out in the field or whatever.
No, I think you're doing the right thing, and then when you do go out competing you'll do much better.
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It's your horse, you compete him/her when you feel ready - or not at all if you don't feel ready

Your horse is not competitive, he/she is quite happy as long as cared for correctly

As for the busybodies - tell them it's your horse and you'll do what you like with it!

If you feel happy the way you are working then carry on with it
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I think either way is fine as long as you are happy. I get mine out and about asap because I love competing and think it does them good to see the sights as it were. But if you are happier waiting then you are not wrong, just different!
 
Thanks for your replies. She is really coming on in leaps and bounds, we have come so far, but I start to doubt myself when people criticize. I took her out to a couple of shows in the summer to get her used to sights and sounds etc and she was very well behaved. She is hacked every day and we have the lessons which she loves. Most other people at my yard drag their horse out of the field on a Sunday for a four hour hack and that's it for the week. Then they wonder why they can't get round a course when they go to a show! I would rather go slow and sure and get it right.

Jo x
 
Don't put yourself under pressure - horses are not ambitious like we are (and they don't go back to the yard at night thinking 'I could do so much better with a different rider!').

As long as your horse is healthy and happy in her work and you feel as though you are both developing then what you are doing is absolutely fine.
 
Nothing wrong with your approach but just be aware that it can get to the situation were your horse is never ready to compete if you know what I mean. There is always room for improvement with any horse so you really need to set down criteria for you and your to be ready to compete at then check progress against them regularly. As soon as minimum criteria is met then get out there
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Well I got my boy in May and still haven't taken him anywhere and nor are we anywhere near ready to.
Similar type was a trekking horse prevoiously so all this school lark is completly new to him.
We also aren't 100% on our left canter lead yet, infact no where near.
Take your time and do what you want when you want.
 
You must do whatever you feel comfortable with and what you want to do. Some people feel that just becase you've got a nice horse you must go competing or you are wasting them. That's total rubbish - horses are there for enjoyment and you should be able to enjoy them the way you want to. Do things in your own time and be happy with it. And then, if and when, you do compete you'll be so brilliant from having worked at home that you'll beat them all. Yippee!!

I had a gorgeous horse who was more than capable of doing events etc and we did a few but didn't really enjoy them. We certainly weren't up for going off to do dressage or indoor sj all the time. So we did what we most loved which was going hunting and we jumped far bigger things then than we would competing and enjoyed it far much more than going off to do events. Do whatever makes you happy.
 
Go and give yourself 30 lashes for not aiming for the olympics!

Wonder why everyone is obsessed with maximising their horses potential - I check with mine on whether they felt they should be competing internationally.... they said 'give me food'.
 
No not at all Jojobah
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As long as you both have fun, take your time, it would be a shame to go out and rush things and make mistakes and risk your's or your horses confidence. Take your time and enjoy it!
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[ QUOTE ]
Go and give yourself 30 lashes for not aiming for the olympics!

Wonder why everyone is obsessed with maximising their horses potential - I check with mine on whether they felt they should be competing internationally.... they said 'give me food'.

[/ QUOTE ]

Brilliant! thankyou

I guess that's the difference with getting advice from people who are already doing it.
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Thanks so much to everyone who replied, I feel much more positive about what we are doing now.

Jo x
 
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