Broken youngsters?

[LEC]

I heard a statistic years ago that only 30% of horses make it to being in ridden work at 5 years old.

 

[DabDab]

I heard a statistic years ago that only 30% of horses make it to being in ridden work at 5 years old.

wow - if that's really the case then it is very frightening

 

[LEC]

There is a lot of foal mortality which will add to the statistics.

 

[EstherYoung]

And a lot go (rightly or wrongly) straight into being broodmares too without their ridden credentials ever being questioned. And some are driven, not ridden And some are started late because they are immature.

30% of horses being ridden at 5 is not the same as saying that your horse that you bred with the intention of riding has a 30% chance of being ridden at 5.

 

[DabDab]

And a lot go (rightly or wrongly) straight into being broodmares too without their ridden credentials ever being questioned. And some are driven, not ridden And some are started late because they are immature.

30% of horses being ridden at 5 is not the same as saying that your horse that you bred with the intention of riding has a 30% chance of being ridden at 5.

Well you don't really know what they would have left in or out when calculating such a statistic, so it is impossible to say what the contributing factors are. It would be interesting to see the write up of the investigation that produced this statistic.

 

[TarrSteps]

It's like the study a decade or so ago that found the average lifespan of a competition horse in Europe is 13. Hard to say what that means in real terms.

There is a more 'attrition based system' in the European studbooks though, which is probably also relevant to this discussion. I suspect at least some of the horses that enter the general riding horse population (or even get made in the first place) in the UK and North America might not in other countries.

 

[seabsicuit2]

Apart from anything else I think a lot of people buy horses with no ideas or aporeciation of how the horse was raised and brought up. Horses are bred like battery hens in Ireland and Europe and then bought over here to be sold as 4/5 year olds and no one has any idea of their background, how they've been raised , or looked after . How do you know that they haven't been living in a barn for four years??! Obviously that is a bit extreme but how would you know?
Would you buy a car without no service history or no information of past ownership? Equally would you buy a car if it had no manufacturer's name on it and you had no idea where the car was made or what factory it came from? The irony is most people don't know how their horses were bought up, or the sort of mileage it has done.

It's why I would only breed my own or buy from a stud that I know well.

Secondly I think shoeing is a big issue and the majority of farriers just don't shoe correctly- no foot no horse.

Then it's just management - correct building up, hours/ months of hacking, not overdoing the schooling/ competing, and regular physio/ Osteo/ chiro- not just every 6 months, but literally every 3 weeks or so... That is a massively crucial part of managing them well I think. I think horses in pain always start of as a little muscle niggle, which is not nipped in the bud quickly, then the pain grows and the body starts having to compensate..

Not blowing my own trumpet at all, it's just what I've learnt after having years of horses , nearly all which broke quite quickly! So it's a horrible lesson to learn and I do everything to avoid it happening again!

 

[LEC]

Or you can know their full history and they still break! Something like Arthritis will happen regardless of upbringing and the age they have been broken.

I do to a certain extent think a lot of soft tissue injuries can be prevented.

 

[TarrSteps]

Re "support staff" I'm not personally convinced the average horse needs to see a chiro/physio/osteo every month, or even that every horse needs a master farrier. What I think DOES help is that *someone* is looking at the big picture and invented in the whole horse, not just looking after their own little bit of it. Obviously, the way things are set up here, that is going to be the owner and it's his/her job to monitor the horse, coordinate specialist help etc. If the horse changes in any way, the first question has to he why, early enough in the game to hopefully address the issue before any permanent problems crop up.

I will say though, this is easier said than done. I've had a few run ins recently with professionals who are so resistant to even the most basic questions or request to work with someone is another field, I've been, well, shocked. I understand how this attitude comes about but how does everyone do their best for a horse if they don't have all the information?

I think the best production systems are fully integrated - it takes a village to produce a horse!

 

[DabDab]

it takes a village to produce a horse!

I like that
I also like buying unbacked youngsters direct from the breeder, but not because I think that their unbringing will have been more conducive to an injury free future. If I buy a 3 yo direct from the field and largely untouched I know (as much as one ever can know), that the training and exercise I do with the horse is not influenced by what has been done by someone else before me. That allows me to be far more able to recognise early when they are acting 'out of character', and far more certain that it is because something is up. Horses still have problems but the early warning signs are far easier to spot.

 

[TarrSteps]

I like that

All credit to Hillary Clinton.

 

[Cortez]

Apart from anything else I think a lot of people buy horses with no ideas or aporeciation of how the horse was raised and brought up. Horses are bred like battery hens in Ireland and Europe and then bought over here to be sold as 4/5 year olds and no one has any idea of their background, how they've been raised , or looked after . How do you know that they haven't been living in a barn for four years??! Obviously that is a bit extreme but how would you know?
Would you buy a car without no service history or no information of past ownership? Equally would you buy a car if it had no manufacturer's name on it and you had no idea where the car was made or what factory it came from? The irony is most people don't know how their horses were bought up, or the sort of mileage it has done.

It's why I would only breed my own or buy from a stud that I know well.

Secondly I think shoeing is a big issue and the majority of farriers just don't shoe correctly- no foot no horse.

Then it's just management - correct building up, hours/ months of hacking, not overdoing the schooling/ competing, and regular physio/ Osteo/ chiro- not just every 6 months, but literally every 3 weeks or so... That is a massively crucial part of managing them well I think. I think horses in pain always start of as a little muscle niggle, which is not nipped in the bud quickly, then the pain grows and the body starts having to compensate..

Not blowing my own trumpet at all, it's just what I've learnt after having years of horses , nearly all which broke quite quickly! So it's a horrible lesson to learn and I do everything to avoid it happening again!

Now this is just silly and inaccurate. I don't know of anywhere in Ireland that produces horses like battery hens; the vast, vast majority of producers have 1 or 2 broodmares and either sell as foals or produce as 3 year olds just backed.