Producing show horses

[CobsCan123]

Hi Everyone,
I was just wondering what is involved with producing/schooling top quality show horses. I know you can pay to send them to professionals but can you not get so far yourself before paying (in my opinion) a lot of money to send them to professionals?! Things like, what age do they start them, what work do they do - is it mainly schooling? Lunging? Do they use lots of gadgets? I ask as I have a traditional cob registered with CHAPS at home and I have been told he has potential to get to Royal International and I would really really love to get him there. I have people around me who compete at HOYs and have offered their help and I will definitely take them up on their offers, however I think it would be a really rewarding accomplishment if I can do a lot of it myself. TIA

 

[Pinkvboots]

My amateur showing friends have lessons with a showing rider and a dressage rider and the ponies compete doing both, they also get help from showing producer friends and they do really well both ponies have qualified for RI and hoys and been placed so is achievable.

 

[LegOn]

I couldnt say I've produced a show horse but I'm new to showing and when I got my horse at 5, I wanted to compete in a big national show arena so I did just that!

I just started a Riding Club level and went to as many shows as possible then - big, small, all just for experience and to learn as much as we could! For me, I got lovely feedback about how well he rode and that is what brought us up the placings alot at county level so I just concentrated on having a nice supple horse that went well on the contact and understood what was being asked of him. I did have a few lessons with a showing judge before the big show but all the rest of the shows I prepared him myself - he does a bit of everything so as an allrounder I think it stood to him. In the beginning he wasnt always very behaved in the go-around, he was a bit of a tank but it was the ride that always helped us!

I would just make sure that all types of riders could sit on him & enjoy riding him - there was lots of help from friends who would sit up on him & have a spin just to check our schooling was on point! I think that helped me alot aswell - if someone couldnt get a good tune out of him fairly easily then I would go back to working on basics! Most of my lessons were with dressage instructors and also an eventer!

 

[SO1]

Could you get a local producer to give you lessons so you don't have to send away and spend lots of money. Also producerds tend to have their horses a lot more well covered perhaps than amateurs as fat can hide conformation faults and you don't want to put your cob at risk of laminitis or joints problems due to over feeding for show ring.

You could also look at getting a producer to meet you at qualifiers to ride for you. They will have more experience of ring craft and in some cases a known face on a horse might give you a better chance of getting a ticket. A producer may not want to ride a horse that they don't think will do well as it may reflect on their reputation but if your horse is that nice then that certainly be an option that appeal to them.