Rising 3 year ridden at BEF show.

Spottyappy said:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/horseandhounddressage/videos/?ref=page_internal
I have emailed the BEF asking for their opinion on the above.
A recently backed, rising 3 year old being ridden, is not acceptable imho.
At most if not all ridden shows I have attended, the minimum criteria for a ridden class is 4 years of age.
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Dont know the circumstances as that link is only any good if your a member of that group! Quick explanation may help!

I am guessing because of the timing it is to do with Bury farm yesterday and for what its worth there were several 2014 born stallions there . They were doing no more than they would at home. They are 3yos its pretty normal to be riding them.
 
In Europe at the sales, gradings etc it is normal for rising 3 yr olds to be displayed under saddle. Whether we think it bad or good I am pretty sure it must be allowed under their rules.
 
The link should take you to the horse and hound dressage site, not a group, popsdosh?
Stôrmox, that's interesting, but something that is alien to me, and probably many Brits, too!
 
Nothing bad to see here? Horse is ridden in a basic trot and a very open canter, and is plainly not struggling. Why is everyone getting in such a state?
 
Spottyappy said:
The link should take you to the horse and hound dressage site, not a group, popsdosh?
Stôrmox, that's interesting, but something that is alien to me, and probably many Brits, too!
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You would have been having kittens if you had seen the SJ ones then. Seriously they are experienced producers who are not likely to want to screw up their young stallions!
 
Cortez said:
Nothing bad to see here? Horse is ridden in a basic trot and a very open canter, and is plainly not struggling. Why is everyone getting in such a state?
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This was my first reaction too. There was similar outrage a couple of months ago over a slightly older horse. They are bred to have outstanding natural balance and paces so appear to be at a more advanced stage than they really are, imo.

It's not in the stud's interest to hammer these young horses, if they stay in work to a good age then the financial reward (as well as the personal enjoyment and kudos) is so much greater ;) so I don't think it's fair to assume they are being worked hard.
 
Spottyappy said:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/horseandhounddressage/videos/?ref=page_internal
I have emailed the BEF asking for their opinion on the above.
A recently backed, rising 3 year old being ridden, is not acceptable imho.
At most if not all ridden shows I have attended, the minimum criteria for a ridden class is 4 years of age.
Click to expand...

I agree with you. Technically they may have turned three on January 1st, a week ago. but few of them will be within 3 months or more of actually being three. To get them prepared for that show they will, surely, have been in work several weeks as a minimum, though I would guess longer. In the interests of getting a quick economic return, they are, for me, being worked and ridden too young. I break three year olds. I have sat on two year olds. But I don't agree with this.
 
I don't know anything much about youngsters but seem to remember a large number of american horses are backed at this age, maybe for whatever reason we as a nation are just starting youngsters older than most.
 
I used to be on the same yard as the Woodlander Stud babies - I think it is safe to say that Lynne Crowden knows what she is doing by now and does not push youngsters too quickly
 
I used to breed dressage horses, warmbloods, and would break them at 3 and finish off with a teeny tiny show, one Prelim test. They would have been under saddle at most 6 weeks by this time.

Valegro was broken at three.
 
Cortez said:
I used to breed dressage horses, warmbloods, and would break them at 3 and finish off with a teeny tiny show, one Prelim test. They would have been under saddle at most 6 weeks by this time.

Valegro was broken at three.
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If they are showing as three year olds now, they weren't anywhere near three when they were broken, were they? Or is January 1st not used as the aging date for this type of horse?

I ride three year olds. But not two year olds.
 
Lévrier;13456195 said:
I used to be on the same yard as the Woodlander Stud babies - I think it is safe to say that Lynne Crowden knows what she is doing by now and does not push youngsters too quickly
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What would be the point? It takes years to train a horse to the top levels so if it breaks at a young age, that's a huge waste of time and effort.
 
It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the horses shown were started a couple of weeks before Christmas. The three year olds are all doing very basic, baby stuff. They are far from two year olds.
 
milliepops said:
What would be the point? It takes years to train a horse to the top levels so if it breaks at a young age, that's a huge waste of time and effort.
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The point with the stallion shows is to start earning money from stud fees as soon as possible. I remember a pretty horrible video of Totilas' first son with a ham fisted and very heavy rider on, at a stallion show when he was only just three.
 
Cortez said:
It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the horses shown were started a couple of weeks before Christmas. The three year olds are all doing very basic, baby stuff. They are far from two year olds.
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Would they seriously send off booking fees to an expensive show for a horse that's never carried a rider?
 
ycbm said:
Would they seriously send off booking fees to an expensive show for a horse that's never carried a rider?
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Of course they would! Look, they are not back yard leisure riders here, they're professional producers. They know very well what they have and what it takes to get the horse ready to present.
 
It's not something that sits comfortably with me.

There is no need to be sitting on a 2yro beyond greed imo, especially to take it to a stallion show to promote it for stud fees in the first week of its 3yro year.
Stick it in the field for another year and you'll still have plenty of time to get it in and ridden for 4yro classes, especially if you are experienced and the horse is naturally balanced and talented.

I'm not a fluffy bunny, have worked in some really top yards and understand these horses have a job and need to provide a return but I honestly don't see what harm waiting another year would do.
 
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If it's the video of Bury farm stallion show it looks like a really green wobbly youngster ridden by a pro and bred to move. I bet it feels a lot less together than it looks. I could quite believe it was only just backed. These people are doing this professionally it's quite a different thing to us doing it.

It reminds me a bit of a sheep dog man I know. He can achieve more in a 10 minute session with a young dog than I could in a month because his timing and handling is so impeccable.
 
They're not promoting for stud fees; they're not graded yet. There is no harm in starting a well-grown, balanced, rising-3 year old IF you don't go crazy and push it beyond what its capable of doing. The majority of sportshorses are started at 3. Flat bred TB's are started at rising 2, worked very hard, and often have problems as a result.
 
Does seem odd to me to be riding horses who haven't yet had their third birthday. I am sure these people know what they're doing, but I am glad my boy was three and a half before he had a rider on. His birthday is late May, so if he'd been shown under saddle at a January show at the beginning of his three year old year he would actually have only been just over two years and six months old. When I look at horses that age in the field, who are of equivalent breeding to those in this video, they don't look anything like mature enough to be started. Maybe these horses have been managed, fed and prepared/strengthened differently to get them ready to take a rider so soon?
 
I think there's a huge difference between backing a horse in the summer as a 3yr old and backing it in the winter as a 2 year old.
There was uproar about it last year as well but the stud chose to do it again. They have their hardcore supporters but I think they are narrow-minded to publicly state that they know best and anyone expressing a different point of view is wrong. I don't really understand what they stand to gain?
 
TheMule said:
I think there's a huge difference between backing a horse in the summer as a 3yr old and backing it in the winter as a 2 year old.
There was uproar about it last year as well but the stud chose to do it again. They have their hardcore supporters but I think they are narrow-minded to publicly state that they know best and anyone expressing a different point of view is wrong. I don't really understand what they stand to gain?
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Erm, they've produced some of the top GP horses in Europe? I think you can be assured that they do, actually, know what they are at....

I used to back all my young WB's at rising three, did it for 15+ years and never had problems. Out of a couple of hundred there were two that I left for another year as they just wern't mature enough, but everything else went along sweetly, and many made it into FEI levels. It is the culture in the UK to leave everything to "mature"; in other places they merrily break horses at 3. I have no problem with it, IF the people doing the training are experienced enough to use judgement in the amount of work that the youngsters are capable of doing.
 
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FfionWinnie said:
If it's the video of Bury farm stallion show it looks like a really green wobbly youngster ridden by a pro and bred to move. I bet it feels a lot less together than it looks. I could quite believe it was only just backed. These people are doing this professionally it's quite a different thing to us doing it.
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Agree. The first one I watched changed canter lead several times in a really baby way but was quickly nannied back together, it looked extremely green and not like a horse that had done much at all.

Lynne Crowden commented in the H&H fb thread to give a little background on the type of conditioning work done before they are backed.

You can either take that at face value and trust that it's in her interests to not overproduce her horses... or you can form your own beliefs. I am happy to give the benefit of the doubt because I just can't see how she would gain anything by ragging them round.
 
They are not two, they are probably 3 months shy of being three year olds. The owners and trainers are best qualified to evaluate the horse's physical and mental states, not you. The majority of sportshorses in europe are broken at 3, they seem to do just fine (cf Valegro). And as far as the horses wellbeing is concerned, I hardly think being a "green" wobbly, unbalanced 6/7/8 year old is helpful....
 
Cortez said:
Erm, they've produced some of the top GP horses in Europe? I think you can be assured that they do, actually, know what they are at....
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Of course they do and it is a shop window for them, but it does need to be remembered that this is for commercial gain and that is where the difference sits between us fun riders and pro riders.

They put the best to the best in the hope of producing the best offspring to achieve the highest possible financial return for them. When the young horse is sold it is the new owners problem to produce it further and hope it stays sound, so in effect the risk sits wholly with the purchaser not the producer. Whether it is acceptable to ride them so early in their lives is a question that has to be answered by the purchaser.
 
The auction riders in Holland and Germany take an unbacked three year old to auction ready in about six weeks. It is not the same as one of us backing our precious youngsters. I bred a Belgian warmblood who was very big and I was advised by two American professional riders to back his as a two year old. As he wasn't being prepared for sale I left him until the spring of his fourth year to grow into him himself.

Just because it isn't the British way to back them young it doesn't mean it is wrong to do so. Lightly sat on and then left to mature is probably not a bad thing as studies show that youngster bones benefit from an element of stress.
 
I don't think people understand the process of licencing and gaining approval for a stallion. This is how it works in Europe, licenced at 2, performance test at 3. There are a few exceptions to the rules but in the main this is how it is done. Lynne Crowden breeds to produce horses that are as good or as better as their European counterparts and her horses continually go to Germany and perform brilliantly in their performance tests, she is a credit to British breeding, no one has achieved even half of what she has. 99% of stallions approved by the studbooks such as Hanoverian, Oldenburg, etc have been produced in this fashion. If your horse comes from one of these studbooks then chances are they are products of this system. I have seen plenty of comments about this on Facebook and I find it frankly ridiculous the number of people getting hysterical then going out to ride their German bred dressage horse whose sire would have been put through the same system they claim to despise. If it bothers people so much then vote with your pocket, after all if breeders can't sell semen, if they can't sell horses, if they don't have people attending stallion shows and licencing then the system will have to change.
 
I backed my mare when she was in the autumn of her three year old year, at about 3 and 7 months, and she's a TB bred to mature quickly...

That's early enough in my opinion, had she been a big rangy horse rather than a small compact one I may have waited longer.

I agree with A A about the motives behind this instance though...

Fiona
 
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