Pelvis from a 4 year old

[sbloom]

This shocked me a little, I thought you might all find it interesting.

5.077 Aufrufe · 137 Reaktionen | We recently introduced 'Biscuit' to our Patreon members, but we thought it would be great to share her video here also. In this video we talk about the... | By Bones, Brains, Bodies & Behaviours | Facebook

We recently introduced 'Biscuit' to our Patreon members, but we thought it would be great to share her video here also. In this video we talk about the...

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[Birker2020]

This shocked me a little, I thought you might all find it interesting.

5.077 Aufrufe · 137 Reaktionen | We recently introduced 'Biscuit' to our Patreon members, but we thought it would be great to share her video here also. In this video we talk about the... | By Bones, Brains, Bodies & Behaviours | Facebook

We recently introduced 'Biscuit' to our Patreon members, but we thought it would be great to share her video here also. In this video we talk about the...

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I love stuff like this. God bless Biscuits owner for letting them use her in this way. This is how we learn. We must stop riding horses before their growth plates have finished forming. In a WB this can be as late as six or seven years old.

I offered my heart horses neck bones to the students at Liverpool when he was pts. It's good people can learn this way.

I want to go to a dissection. My physio friend has been and said is was fascinating.

 

[maya2008]

I love stuff like this. God bless Biscuits owner for letting them use her in this way. This is how we learn. We must stop riding horses before their growth plates have finished forming. In a WB this can be as late as six or seven years old.

I offered my heart horses neck bones to the students at Liverpool when he was pts. It's good people can learn this way.

I want to go to a dissection. My physio friend has been and said is was fascinating.

Evidence isn’t not to ride at all before growth plates close, if you go and look for studies. They did a fascinating one on racehorses where they looked at bone development, and there have been others. Basically, like with a human child, it is important for them to exercise, and carrying some weight on its own isn’t the issue (you can have horses that are more overweight than the weight of a rider would be after all!) Anecdotally on here, people have in fact found the biggest soundness issues in horses backed after the age of six. You also have obesity issues when they are no longer growing much and just mooching around eating a ton of grass.

It’s overdoing it that is the problem.

Think about a human child. Do serious gymnasts who start young have a short career and an adulthood full of physical issues? Often, yes. Do all kids who go to gym classes once or twice a week from toddlerhood have those problems? Nope. Is it healthy for children to do a reasonable amount of exercise? Definitely!!!!

People forget that horses/ponies under the age of 8 are CHILDREN. They can no more do an adult workload at adult level, than they can teach someone to ride and make helpful decisions all the time. They might stop growing taller at 6, but the increase in stamina and strength by 8 is incredible.

 

[Polos Mum]

It's not super perfect but an easy rule of thumb to help people with the comparison is that 1 human year is the same as 3 horse years (like 1 human year is c.7 dog years)

So a 25 year old horse is 75 human years old - some can be up to stuff but many taking life easy
A 10 year old horse is 30 human years old - strong / established
A 5 year old horse is a 15 year old child - some look like adults (and certainly want to be adults) but rarely mentally or physically mature

 

[Birker2020]

Evidence isn’t not to ride at all before growth plates close, if you go and look for studies. They did a fascinating one on racehorses where they looked at bone development, and there have been others. Basically, like with a human child, it is important for them to exercise, and carrying some weight on its own isn’t the issue (you can have horses that are more overweight than the weight of a rider would be after all!) Anecdotally on here, people have in fact found the biggest soundness issues in horses backed after the age of six. You also have obesity issues when they are no longer growing much and just mooching around eating a ton of grass.

It’s overdoing it that is the problem.

Think about a human child. Do serious gymnasts who start young have a short career and an adulthood full of physical issues? Often, yes. Do all kids who go to gym classes once or twice a week from toddlerhood have those problems? Nope. Is it healthy for children to do a reasonable amount of exercise? Definitely!!!!

People forget that horses/ponies under the age of 8 are CHILDREN. They can no more do an adult workload at adult level, than they can teach someone to ride and make helpful decisions all the time. They might stop growing taller at 6, but the increase in stamina and strength by 8 is incredible.

I suppose that makes sense Maya.
But it depends how you define exercise at aged 2 or 3. Racehorses definitely do too much too soon. That's not exercise, that's work.

Going for a short hack a couple of times a week and maybe doing an in hand groundwork session (but not lunging) is a fair compromise.

 

[expanding_horizon]

I suppose that makes sense Maya.
But it depends how you define exercise at aged 2 or 3. Racehorses definitely do too much too soon. That's not exercise, that's work.

Going for a short hack a couple of times a week and maybe doing an in hand groundwork session (but not lunging) is a fair compromise.

Race horses live an un-natural life and are started too young. But I am not sure they all "work" that hard.

I see lots of two year olds being exercised. Most have a very light saddle and rider, walk to gallops (with maybe a trot on the way), do what ever work they are doing, only sometimes full fast work and walk back. Is that vastly different work from the running a group of two year olds would do in a field?

 

[Glitterandrainbows]

Race horses live an un-natural life and are started too young. But I am not sure they all "work" that hard.

I see lots of two year olds being exercised. Most have a very light saddle and rider, walk to gallops (with maybe a trot on the way), do what ever work they are doing, only sometimes full fast work and walk back. Is that vastly different work from the running a group of two year olds would do in a field?

Yes because they have the added weight of a rider and they don’t have much of a choice in it either so if it’s uncomfortable they can’t exactly slow down stop

 

[Ample Prosecco]

And they are raced! Horses hooning in the field are like kids in the playground. They generally aren’t entered in the Olympics track events. A friend has a racehorse. I can never comment on her posts as I find it so ethically difficult. But this horse was bought at Tatersalls as a yearling, in training immediately then raced a full season travelling up and down the country repeatedly. She won a lot actually. But she’s a baby! It’s seems utterly wrong to me.

 

[Ample Prosecco]

Just going back to this.

The horse was born Spring 2020.
First race was April 2022. Just turned 2.

If Felix were a race horse he would be under saddle by now. Which just turns my stomach. And not just under saddle but training with a view to competing in high pressure environments at the limit of his capabilities involving hours in lorries up and down the country. Wrong, wrong, wrong on every level. She is a commodity. She is making them a lot of money and giving them fun days out quaffing fizz. Her worth is entirely tied up in her ability to cope with the pressure, not break and run fast. Where is she ever, ever, allowed to be a horse. Racehorse life bears zero resemblance to 'horses playing in a field'.

 

[Caol Ila]

The 3-1 horse-human age ratio isn't quite accurate because young horses and young humans don't mature at the same relative rate. Once the horse is an adult, the 3-1 ratio works better as a rule of thumb.

All the charts that I can find on the web show roughly the following:

Yearling -- 4-6 year old human

2 year old -- 12/13 year old human

3 year old -- 13/17 year old human

4 year old -- 19/20 year old human

5 year old -- 21-23 year old human

6 year old -- 25-27 year old human

Anyway, I think it's okay to do a little bit of ridden work with your 3/4 year old. There's a world of difference between that and 2-year old racing. You would not want your human teen *not* exercising, just telling them to sit and play computer games until their mid-20s. We know that's unhealthy! At the same time, we also know that human athletes who push themselves to their limits as teenagers, like gymnasts and pro footballers, are often quite broken by the time they are 30.