broken or unbroken ?

[NiamhB]

My faithful old mare is reaching the stage of her life where i think its time to decrease her workload.
which leaves me in the exciting position of looking for a new horse. this time i would really like to take on a younger horse and work with it . Every other horse ive owned has been relativity well broken by the time i bought it, not to say ive no experience with green horses, ive ridden a good few over the years helping out in different yards .

My question is should i buy an unbroken youngster and start form scratch , or one just broken and already in light ridden work. If i buy an unbroken horse i plan to have it professionally broken by people i know and trust and have seen how they break there horses as well as ridden some of their youngsters. im prepared for all the costs involved in this process

of should i just buy something with some basic work done and continue on form there ?
i know of course the easiest thing would be to buy a more experienced horse but that's not what i want right now.
my plan would be the buy something either full ID or something with a lot of ID in it.

 

[be positive]

I would be a bit flexible, decide what type you want and a few must haves and see what turns up within budget, my instinct would tend to guide buyers towards one that is started under saddle so they have the chance to sit on before buying, it can be very green but the feeling you get can be the deciding factor and something you can only guess at if it has not been backed.
There is always the risk that someone has tried and failed or made a poor job of the basics so is selling as not backed to consider, if you want a good ID type that is honestly described Janet George would be worth contacting.

 

[ImmyS]

Depends. If they’re lightly broken and have been broken ‘well’ then it would mean you could get going over the spring and summer doing a bit more getting out hacking etc.

If they haven’t been broken yet then obviously time and money will have to be invested in that but at least you avoid things being badly done.

I bought mine as broken rising 4 year old, but he had been broken badly and needed rebacking. He wasn’t difficult, but obviously takes more time undoing bad work.

I guess it depends on the horse. Unbroken means a clean slate.

But if nicely broken and riding away nicely then could be fun to progress with over the summer.

 

[scruffyponies]

If you're going to send it away for breaking I would buy something already broken.

 

[NiamhB]

If you're going to send it away for breaking I would buy something already broken.

i would be heavily involved in the breaking, i just wouldn't be alone in doing it as im not experienced enough to break a horse myself.

 

[gnubee]

I decided with my mare that I’d always previously ridden horses that had a lot of other people in them and I wanted to see what a horse just backed by me without external influence looked like. Since then I’ve also backed my loan mare and started on my 3 yo. It’s been a really interesting experience (although one thing I’ve learned is that I don’t really have enough time to ride consistently, and that combined with my lack of experience means it takes me years to get to where a professional would have got in weeks). The other thing I learned is that once they’re backed (literally just to the point of walking and trotting in the school) you can pretty much tell how they will be to ride for the rest of their ridden career in a way that you can’t necess guess from ground handling. If you’re a genuine I’ll ride anything person it’s a fab experience and go for it - I wouldn’t trade it. That said, next time I buy one I would go for one I can try ridden and see if I can find one like my 3 or 4 favourites from my riding school days where the way it goes is so in synch with the way I ride that new things come easily.

 

[The Fuzzy Furry]

Speak to Janet George on here, she breeds ID, def worth going to see her.