Remembering WHY I didnt want a 4yr old again...

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KatB

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what "stages" did your 4 yr old go through?!

Mine has now decided her stable is the SCARIEST place ever and refuses to go in it, unless bribed when she will merrily walk in without a care in the world
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Goddy also went through the same "stage". She has also decided that being led involves either being dragged, or doing the dragging...
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However, I have to say I do also love having a "baby" for all the new stuff they teach you... and of course the new stuff you can (try!) and teach them....
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Soooo what stages have your babies gone through?!
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im still waiting for mine, which scares me slightly lol!

ever since i re-backed star he has well and truly lived up to his name and has pretty much been the same horse every time iv ridden for the year iv owned him, no stages of anything other than being willing and honest.

he will be 5 in 2010 so maybe the kevin years are still to come?!
 
Ummm donkey.... then donkey.... then lame donkey... now hunting donkey. Commonly recognised as the only horse on the yard to be found curled up asleep (eyes closed and snoring!) when a show was held at the yard. Repeats this act most days between breakfast and tea and refuses to get up even when you go in the box and shout at him. Luckily the snoring lets you know that he is actually still alive.....
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millie was an absolute demon of a 4yro!

she was a doddle to break and ride on at 3, turned 4 and was a horrendous brat!

she couldn't stand still to be mounted, fly bucked regularly when in the school, power walked at 30mph on hacks combined with regular spooks that were so big they registered as teleporting!

in the yard she decided she couldn't be shod anymore in front.

also stopped loading for no reason!!

she was much better this year as a 5yro, really progressed with her ridden work and has turned back into a perfect neddy to be with on the floor.

hopefully 2010 as a 6yro the progress will continue but i think she will always have a stroppy tb mare streak!

looking forward to next season when 17.1hh Vinnie will be having his 4th birthday in April...!
 
Dante's -supposed- to be 5, and still acts like a 3yr old
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He's a little behind, in many senses...
We've also had the scary stable stage - one day involving him randomly stopping and running backwards, nearly sitting on my mum and pulling my arm out of its socket (nearly...). After that, he realised that there was FOOD inside and was happy
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He also has a strong belief that he can walk through walls/fences/bushes etc...
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I'm rather hoping that he will grow out of that, it could make XC fun
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I do find him rather amusing at times though, I must admit
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Prince33Sp4rkle thats not fair
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And SO not the point of having a 4yr old
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Lol L!! Fugly is "mr laidback" then evidently
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I forgot the fact L can also do a full on bronco display in the confines of her stable at feeding time...
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Oh yeah millitiger, we've also done the "can't stand/won't stand" thing for being mounted, and the loading is hit and miss too
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G was the same also, and was actually the best loader I have ever come across once he got over it!!
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H bombs was just letting you know that he could explode at any point if he wanted to, but never quite reaching the detonation point! (Hense the nick name) Still reminds me of this at times, such as when having had a holiday, so looks like I could be revisiting this when the school is usable again
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Mine has gone through (but sometimes reverts) the plodding along as good as gold, then suddenly turning himself inside out and spending the next few minutes trying to buck you off. Then plods on as if nothing has happened. The funniest was when my friends horse stood on a twig, colin went from plodding, to leaping 6 ft in the air, to plodding in 0.5 seconds!!!! At the moment we are going through the nibbling phase, he loves my winter coat, coz it has loads of zips and toggles he can play with. He also went through a phase of taking off both front shoes in the lorry (go only know how, he had boots on, and we can see him on the cctv!) Luckily that has now stopped, it was costing me a fortune!!!!!
 
alwaysbroke, aren't they delightful?! After smugly saying to a fellow livery when asked what L thought of the "spooky corner" of the school that she was absolutely fine and didnt take any notice of it, she then proceeded to do spinning top impressions the other night to get away from the "scary" corner
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she likes to prove me wrong
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My big baby pony seems to be going on a 3 month cycle...2 months angel to 1 month new problem! At the moment he's coming back from 2 weeks off because of the snow, and the time i rode him before that he depositedly me rather determinedly all because of a plastic pole cover...to say I'm apprehensive would be putting it mildly!!!
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He is a sweetie though, and does make me laugh. a lot. If our eventing career doesn't work out i'm keeping him as a big pet to make me smile!! He still doesn't trust the miniature shetlands at our yard after 4 months...that reaction was priceless
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well, apart from the fact that i'm a bit jaundiced, cos 1 of my 4 yr olds managed to break me rather spectacularly 5 weeks ago...
the other one, Ellie, is the world's biggest wimp, and the only youngster i have ever sat on who stopped dead, boggled and went into reverse when first asked to walk over a rustic pole on the ground. great, this one's going to get to Badders then...! however, after that she got quite brave! no idea what she'll be like when i get back on. she also went from 'rocket-propelled over nothing at all' to 'bone idle off the leg' on a totally random basis... i never knew which mood she'd be in when i got on (attitude on the lunge had no reliable relationship to attitude under saddle) so she's quite entertaining to ride... she was an utter pain for poor Ruth to lead around when I was really crocked, doing hysterical double takes and leaping dramatically sideways at everything on the yard she's walked past a million times, etc etc... but i usually just let her follow me and she's really calm and confident that way. most odd.
hellbag, Daisy, She Who Broke Me, varies from boring and easy, to randomly argmentative over absolutely nothing at all, to dramatically leaping around for the hell of it. which wasn't very nice actually...
hmm. there's a lot to be said for sane older horses actually!
next time i get on 1 i'm going to try to remember that the only thing that's consistent about 4 yr olds is their inconsistency!
 
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My 4yr old is perfect
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Im not joking - she is quite amazing, has the attitude of a 10 yr old and is just so lovely to have around. I forget sometimes how young she is! (insert smug smiley here)

[/ QUOTE ]

You just wait until she is 5 then
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Lol! Yeah well other than the erratic stable habits, L has been very very good up to now... she is almost exactly 4.5 now so has decided she has hit teenage years
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and the snow and ice dont help much either!!
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My 7yr old Mare is so funny she took to not loading, and tshen not going in her stable and generally being obnoxious Im blaming the fact that she wasnt broken till she was 5 so is having her 4yr old last yr and now!!!

Horses are funny, but she gave me some big hugs today!!!
 
Don't wish to depress you - but we have 17yr old who still does the ILS (Independant Leg Spook) and teleportation thing.

Mind you - maybe that dementia setting in.......
 
Buster even thou hes 4 - hes been in work since he was 2 as we was in flat race training. TBH thou he was great and so eager to learn so just the willing stange!! Hes had 3 months off and came in to work on monday and is still in the "oh whats that over there i want a look please" stage!
 
Oh god Vaya went through sooooooooo many stages, some of them never ended
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I remember her trying to nap stage... where she would go from full on to stand still in a split second and then run backwards at a million miles an hr!
She tried to buck ONCE, never again after mummy smacked her lol.
To be fair to her the ridden work was pretty good but on the ground she could be such a pain. The rearing being led stage, the not loading stage, the not being shod phase. The phase where even if I was 1 minute late in the morning she would turn herself inside out in the stable and I would arrive to a sweating, rearing, galloping tyrant!

My current 4 yr old im sure is still on his best behaviour.. I knew when I got him that he too was going through his nappy/spinning phase, but since ive had him he has only done it once! Luckily being a TB he seems to have half a brain cell and I think he picks up on the fact I wont tolerate it
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I jumped him over a tiny jump yest and he was so busy oggling the boxes that were lying by the side that he didnt even see the jump and he demolished it.. ahhh gotta love the baby moments
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LOL at Britestar....
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Well Vandi is a wierd one, he really is. on the ground he's an absolute angel. despite not having been handled very much before i got him (he was living out as a bonafide bog pony in a huge herd) he's taken everything in his stride- he loads perfectly, is great for the farrier, dentist, chiro etc. he doesn't drag me to the field, is easy to catch, brill to lunge....
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ridden wise he's totally different from ANYTHING i've ever ridden before. he's cold backed and so when breaking him he would deck me as soon as i hit the saddle. he bucks like a rodeo bull and gives you no chance to stay on. its that bad neither of my (very experienced) trainers will get on him. BUT having said that...if you survive the first minute/ make sure he's warm before you get on he's generally an angel to ride- very willing. about once every two weeks tho he is a spook monster and won't do anything except leap around at random with no warning....
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i love him to pieces but do worry that he's just gonna get bigger and stronger
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Well Lordie has been through the fly bucking -spooking at everything stage
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We have also seen through the brat attacks when ridden but it has now transferred to the ground, he can be bolshy when led (GIT) and he has started nipping although I'm CONVINCED that's through people feeding him
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All in all though he is a good lad, I had him in the school yesterday with 4 other horses / ponies for the first time and he was ACE, walked around on the buckle totally un-phased
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Got a bit scared at your title KatB....thought L had caused you an injury (bet there are a whole pile of v fresh horsies about at the moment
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)

S was a mega spooker as a 4yo. I fell off on my head (thankfully in our school), and D fell off on his head out hacking both because of lightning 180 deg spins. She still does this occasionally but in a much more dignified fashion.

F was a late developer after being fantastically civil as a baby. She reserved her best bad behavior for her 6yo year where 'airs above the ground' were commonplace every time we took her out somewhere for the first time. Her worst non ridden trick was to pull back when tied up (thankfully grew out of this).

Fiona
 
My 3 - soon to be 4 year old is a monster but I absolutely love playing with him. He is very colty and inquisitive, he gets hold of everything with his teeth and wants to investigate everything. He does a mean line in trying to hide directly behind me if he sees anything scary, and then peering around me
He tries to scare anyone he hasn't met before by snarling at them with ears back, but is the softest thing in the world with people he knows. A real oddball.
He is also very impatient and wants to be having adventures. If you leave him for too long tied up he will entertain himself doing little rears and pirouettes.
 
Mine is currently enjoying the constant pawing the ground game, and has learnt how to untie ropes, and rip bits of timber off my stables! Not eat them mind, just rip and fling them across the yard.....

Oooh and ridden wise- when I backed her she struggled bending right and was heavy as a board, but had a nice 'weight' of contact in the left.....now we have a nice weight of contact in the right, and absolutely sweet FA in the right- it's vile to ride, going right, i just have no weight in the right contact! Im soooo frustrated LOL
 
My old little pony was a doddle as a 5yo, the only problem we encountered was when something scared her she stood still and shook from head to toe, she's also ticklish so when you tried to clip under her legs she collapsed in a heap
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!

Other than that she was simple; to the point where she broke her headcollar tied to the trailer at a show and stood there for a good 10 mins, you could leave the field gate open and she would wait to be lead in after you returned from taking another horse in. She certainly wasn't the brightest but I'm not complaining!
 
Beau was a total doddle to break in at 4yrs (and in general really), really easy and laid back gave us no trouble. 5 however was a different story managed to dump me twice and my mum once(which takes some skill!) the most spectacular was after doing a 180 spin followed by a rodeo display where his heels where clearing my head every buck by the 10th I reached the point of no return landing infront of some horrifed cyclists (of course my swearing my have been what horrified them). Shying was his form of napping and was to be the theme of the year. His shies were in the teleportion department. Out of interest I once measured the distance between the take off and landing hoof prints - 2.5 m forward and 1m to the left!!!! the little bugger.

By contrast I have broken in some evil 3yr olds. One black mare in particular stands out, even before I first got on her I new that one day she would dump me big time and there would be no way in hell I would stay on. Fortunatly(?) she chose to do it in the arena infront of the 2 'cowboys' I was working with who very kindly scraped me up, caught her lunged her till whe was exhausted and then rode out the remain bucks themselves. I'm glad that there is still some chivalry in the world =)
 
Oh sounds like Madam is having lots of fun!! You love it really!!
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TBH i think its more a case of what didn't mine do as a 4 year old.....
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he was truly awlful and i nearly got rid!!!
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Bucked, fly bucked, napped, planted, spooked, stupid in traffic (all within a milli second!) went through the loading thing too, although now he's fab, better than my veteran!! Allsorts of stable displays, jumping out of his field (over 5' hedge!) erm......the list is long!
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Thank god he's now 7!!
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Tis satifying though when you think what you've done! Its amazing how one small thing erases every single bad thing!!

Are you jp'ing on the 9th??
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