Introducing a horse to schooling

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indiat

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Hi all,

I have noticed some ads for happy hackers that sound great for us but the sellers state they have no idea if the horse has schooled and they have no facilities/inclinaiton to try it out. How hard would it be to introduce a horse to schooling? We need something that can do the basics to take the eldest through pony camp. Has anyone ever retrained a happy hacker?
 
surely to have been started off and brought on, these horses must have been schooled? even if they are now happy hackers?:confused: i cant see why it would be a problem to introduce more formal schooling even if all a horse has done is hack for a while?
 
The one in particular I am thinking of, the lady bought her off a dealer and has never schooled her and is unaware of the horse's history. I do know of one horse on our yard who could not ride a circle but he was very young. This mare is 12. I am assuming if she bend, then she has been schooled at some stage? Forgive my ignorance but my first horse came to me knowing how to do it all and showed me!
 
It depends on the horse, some find it easier than others. If you bought a horse now though i would say you would be hard pushed to school it sufficiently to cope with camp. At camp lessons can be 1-2 hours long, twice a day, which imo is alot to expect of a horse thats just started schooling.

Introducing a horse to schooling can be done for any horse but it will be more successful if you take it slowly and dont have a time limit by which to reach a certain standard.
 
ok, well her flatwork may be green, as in she isnt balanced enough to canter a 20m circle. but to answer your question; yes, it is completely possible. infact if your son takes a horse like this along to ponyclub camp im sure they will help, you dont have to have a perfectly schooled horse to go to these things. Of course it does take work, but with regular lessons im sure the horse will improve faster than you think.:)
 
I can't believe a 12 year old wouldn't know the rudiments :)

But on to the schooling question, you seem to be looking at schooling as almost an "event" when of course it's just a different name for training.

Everything you ask a horse to do is schooling. Walk to halt on a hack is schooling and you work and work and get it better and better each time. Am I making sense?

The mare is schooling everytime she is asked to do a transition or position herself further to the left or the right.

So it makes no difference if you are doing that out on a hack or in a school IYSWIM?
 
Thank you all! I am sorry I sound so ignorant but my first horse was the perfect school mistress who really knew her job and I feel so cowed around really horsey people who have backed and trained from scratch. Persephone, thanks for clearing that up for me. I see so many ads that say "horse won't school" that I thought I had better check this rather than make an assumption. I feel safer doing it on here rather than at the yard where everyone will say "Guess what she asked?!".

teddyt, just to make it clear, my daughter will not be riding this animal for hopefully a couple of years. She was given a very grumpy 30 year old dartmoor who knows her job inside out and is currently having a lot of fun on her. I need a horse for myself as I really miss riding since my beautiful mare passed away in November but I have to be sensible and get some thing the eldest can move onto and do some basic PC activites on - there is only so many livery bills I can pay and we are hoping grumpy knickers will be alive and kicking for a good few years. But if this little mare is still available tomorrow (which I doubt, she is very keenly priced) I would have at least a year to settle her in and work her on. It depends on how fast the eldest grows, she's like a weed!
 
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