Are people pushing their youngster too much?

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flyingfeet

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Feeling a little sick from BSJA yesterday. There was a girl there with a 4 year old, who I helped out with the BN course, even mentioning (idiot) there was a possible shortcut in the jump off (nasty angle though). She siad "oh she's only 4 so I'm not going to push her".

So off she goes and produces the most horrible looking round, takes said shortcut, nearly has it down, little mare helps her out (so unbalanced) and she wins class beating me by less than half a second.

However then takes the baby in the disc, again starts on a fairly ugly unbalanced looking round and ends in disater at a parallel, baby gets in wrong, shes thrown off, horse rolls, but fortunately not on her and has a deep cut in the upper part of the tendon and is hopping lame.

I felt quite sick and pissed off, the poor little mare did her best and has probably been put off for life (explains why some start regularly stopping!). Possibly now also has a nasty tendon injury for life.

Perhaps I'm backward, but I have never seriously jumped any of mine until they are 6 and even now won't go up the classes until I am sure horse has confidence and technique to go there. Maybe I don't progress as fast as others, but I have nice brave horses!

So do people push their horses either for vanity or profit?
 
Yes, I think alot are pushed too early, the pro's at least know what they are doing, some amateurs are even more dangerous as tghey havent a clue
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Oh i know its awful isnt it !!! mine is 6yo and is starting affiliated in January !!! why cant people just take the youngters out for experience !! She will learn the hard way but i feel sorry that the horse has to get injured
 
I hate to judge as I know if you'd seen me on my horse at the beginning of last summer or any time the summer before you would have said the same about me - our rounds were unbalanced and horrible and we had poles left right and centre. (He was 5 rising 6 the first year, 7 half way though last summer).

Trouble was I could do it at home or in a lesson but had no ringcraft and so fell apart at comps. The only way I improved was by doing loads and loads of it.

I hate to see any horse get injured, but sometimes if you don't know the full story it's easy to jump to the wrong conclusion. I do think some people push too fast but eventually they come unstuck...
 
I agree though that sometimes the only way for them to improve is to get them out, but why did she run in the second class too?
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I agree you need to take them out - but I took mine to local shows and jumped dinky courses until they were good in the ring and balanced. When they are little they get themselves out of trouble and less likely to end in heap.

I didn't start on affiliated jumping until they were ready. Cannot see the point in throwing them round a 3ft 3" until they are balanced! (Bearing in mind the JO reaches 3ft 6"!)
 
My boy is a late foal and won't be 41/2 until Dec 31st. I backed him mid June and then did the basics with my trainer who then suggested I put him over a fence. Horse jumped brilliantly because that's what he's bred to do end of session. I haven't jumped him since. Unfortunately he's under the weather at the moment and in the field, but all I intend to do with him over Christmas is get him road fit anyway.
I have a one-off jumping lesson with Geoff Billington in January and that will be it until the summer when he can go to a few riding club things before affiliating as a 6yo.
 
Every week at the competitions you see this happening, riders that are obsessed with jumping. They don't seem to realise that the horse spends 90% of the time on the floor & only 10% of the time in the air so they must have established flat work. Without this the horse is not going to have a steady workable canter, will be unbalanced, disunited, & will be unlikely to cope with full courses of whatever height.

Most Pro riders understand this & their youngsters will have done plently of flatwork schooling but I'm afraid many people don't realise the value of that & just jump & jump.
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I couldn't agree more T_Z. I think a lot of people get away with it because they have talented horses that have a very natural jumping technique, but even at the lower levels BSJA you need to be able to ride dog-legs and related distances. How can you do that if you can't shorten and lengthen the canter stride whilst keeping the horse balanced?

I won a lesson with Geoff Billington through Horse magazine and one of the first things he picked up on was that whilst I had a good rhythm with Ross (huge, big-striding 5yo), I couldn't change it without things going a bit wayward. I'm schooling my OH's new hunter at the moment and he's been BSJA with his previous owner, but I'm only jumping him out of trot, or out of canter with a placing pole because his canter is so big he struggles to keep his balance on the approach. Goodness knows what his previous owner did to get round a course, it must have been interesting to watch!
 
Sounds awful, stupid stupid girl. I hope she was told it was her own fault that she's now damaged her horse, possibly permanently.

I do think some push their horses too quickly. A 4yo should be kept jumping confidently and happily, not moving up until ready. And certainly shouldn't be made to do crazy turns / speed in jump offs.
 
It isn't just limited to jumping either. I hate seeing young dressage horses being made to work in a very advance, collected manner before they are ready physically to work like this. If you go to the sales in Germany or Holland (and sometimes here too), there are often 3 year olds working at medium and yet some of my big warmbloods weren't strong enough to take the weight on their hindquaters enough to canter in a truely correct and uphill way of going until they were 6. I wonder about these young horses joints and working life expectancing compaired with horses that are allowed more time to mature. Yes, young horses do need to build the muscles up to carry themselves, but IMO they need to do this slowly or they risk damaging themselves and shortening their working lives considerably.
 
If a horse is happy and confident and NOT overphased from day 1, and NOT pushed, they generally don't have any problems and last so much longer.
Whats more importan; taking a young horse and winning as much as possible, but is then retired at 10? Or getting everything so established and happy that they last till their way over 20, and still happy to do it!!!
 
I have a very talented 4 year old (IMHO anyway), he was imported from France in May where he had jumped 2 x 4 year old classes jumping double clears on both occasions and winning. I registered him BSJA in May and jumped a few British Novice on him, from trot may i add to get us both out and about. He started the indoor season really well, won his first indoor British Novice, not because i went fast or cut corners, but because he has a huge stride (he is 17.1) and i allowed him to flow on. Trainer advised to be off fences with him rather than underneath and to allow him to find his stride. I jumped him in his first Discovery last weekend where he finished 6th. Again not due to me going fast but because of his stride.

He has now spent the week in the field, as he did after winning the BN. I have never rushed anything, in fact i am rather backward and take my time. But he needs to go to shows, he only goes in the school twice a week as it bores him, the rest of the time i ride him round the farm. I would hate for someone to judge me and say i was over doing it with him. They start them differently abroad and probably better than us, so although he was green he wasn't phased by anything.

I would never ask a 4 year old to go against the clock, that is very wrong. But i would also not keep them at home to have seen and done nothing until they were 6, the sooner they have seen things the better for horse and rider.
 
[ QUOTE ]
If a horse is happy and confident and NOT overphased from day 1, and NOT pushed, they generally don't have any problems and last so much longer.
Whats more importan; taking a young horse and winning as much as possible, but is then retired at 10? Or getting everything so established and happy that they last till their way over 20, and still happy to do it!!!

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree completely! My 10 year old is working at medium because he is a very big horse standing over 17 hands and he wasn't physically mature until he was 8. My trainer is confident we will get to Advanced, but I am expecting him to still be going strong at 20 so there is no need to rush things and progress as we are both ready.
 
I think this more an example of pushing a novice horse rather than a young horse. The horse didn't have the schooling or experience to be pushed and to be honest it would have been equally inappropriate if it was a novice 10 year old.

I have no problems with jumping a 4 year old around a BN os Disc (particularly this time of year) providing it has a good basic grounding and the work has been put in at home. Also I would be far more fussy with the standard of the courses, ground condition etc.
 
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