Our 1st hack in company

[malibu211211]

Took Monty out for a hack in company for the first time today. He went in front as the other 2 horses are 15hh and 15.1hh and he would be smelling their bums and catching their heels otherwise

He was a very good boy apart from the odd 'baby' strop when he didn't want to go forwards

I realised today how far behind he is in his training, he is still very wobbly considering he is 6

He has hacked for the past year after being broken, turned away and schooled.
My past horses have all been 'been there, done that' horses and so this is my first experience of this.

How much work should he be doing and what work should he be doing?
Or is it a case of just getting on with it?
Thanx for reading

 

[JAK]

Glad your first hack in company with Monty went well!

As long as you don't rush him or put too much pressure on him, I would have thought you could pretty much 'just get on with it' really!
You say he has been hacking for the past year, so is presumably fairly fit?

To make sure you don't miss any steps, I guess you could start with some baby stuff schooling wise, to see exactly what he does & doesn't know & build it up gradually.
At his age, he will hopefully have a slightly longer attention span than a real baby but you still don't want to overtax or bore him!

It would be easy however, to fall into the trap of babying him too much & you do need to crack on to to some degree with his training, or he will fall further & further behind!
Make sure he fully understands what it is you are asking of him before moving onto the next step but at his age, this should be a quicker process than with a real youngster!

If you are stuck for ideas, rope in a friend to help you out initially, shouldn't be hard as people usually love contributing input! lol
At the moment, Monty probably assumes that hacking is pretty much 'all there is to it', so little & often will be less of a shock to him than one or two longer schooling sessions a week! lol

 

[Walder]

congrats he sounds like a good buy! - I personally would just gently hack and school lightly for the first month or so just till he gets used to his new home and you both get used to each other - plenty of brisk walking out will help biuld up muscles and teach him to be calm.