Silly youngster moments

[popcorn1]

Tell me about your silly youngster moments.

Anything they have done when they have first met something when being led out. Any reactions to tack etc that you weren't expecting. Any hairy early rides?

Let's hear them. The good, the bad and the ugly.

 

[sherry90]

I’ve been very lucky with mine. Took to initial backing very easily. Never really been the spooky type, I did do a lot of in hand walking round the village when he was 2/3 though.
Hairy moment when we first went to Somerford farm ride and he clapped eyes on the 80 acre XC with about 4 pony club camps going on and we piaffed and passaged our way down the farm ride track alongside it ? went to camp a few months after on said 80 acres, was nervous he would be the same/worse but he was a star.
He went through a very small phase of finding canter in open spaces exciting when he was 4 and did very miniscule broncs - short lived and too much effort so quickly stopped.
I’ve been lucky so far but we are now in 6yo year and I wonder if the Kevin’s will kick in?!

 

[lannerch]

I have owned my filly for one year today , I bought her as a 2yo from the stud she was bred.

I read your post and my first reaction was so far she’s never put a foot out of line , taken to everything like a duck to water ( she’s had tack on and been extensively long lined around the neighbourhood) however then I remembered the chicken story where a cockerel deceived to attack her from behind while I was leading her, was really going for her , now what would every other horse do , it would kick , Luckily for the cockerel not my girl whose only defence was to run me over for protection. I ended up having to kick out at the chicken to chase it off , daft horse .

 

[ihatework]

I’ve been wracking my brains but can think of much over the many years and multiple youngsters that I wouldn’t consider normal baby stuff.

Only two that spring to mind was my current horse as a 3yo had his first abscess and was completely melodramatic about his first foot poultice. Freaked out at the vetwrapped foot. It was entertaining watching him trying to run away from his own leg.

I did also have a pretty saintly youngster who out hacking alone on a single track with high banks either side, encountered a defender and trailer coming far too fast. He went to whip round and we somehow ended up perched precariously on top of a 6ft high bank

ETA Oh, and in a similar vein just remembered the shenanigans a young event horse I used to part own got up to. Once (not with me on him) he spooked out hacking in the process jumping over a stone wall into a farmers field. Only problem was the field was significantly lower than the road and was all locked up.
That same horse also learnt to undo his field gate. I received a video one morning from his rider named ‘where’s Noddy’ as she proceeded to video tracking his footprints around the estate - this included across the manicured croquet lawn, dung deposits around the tennis courts until he was located at the far end of the Xc training paddock. When called he trotted over, popping a couple of Xc fences on the way ?

 

[Meowy Catkin]

When my gelding first met cows as a youngster was pretty funny as he called to them and wanted to show off to them. He reacted as if they were mares with foals rather than cows with calves and to this day I'm still convinced that he thinks that cows are just a different breed of horse.

 

[Berpisc]

Years ago. Riding my young mare out down a limestone/muddy track that had pot holes in it, someone had put some spare black tarmac into one of the deeper holes...I think she could not work out what the hell was going to happen if she went anywhere near it, would she get sucked in, never to appear again?? Actually an understandable reaction but it was quite comical at the time.

 

[FlyingCircus]

The other day I was "schooling" my newly backed mare, she dragged my leg into the fence which scared her then whilst she jumped from that she darted and that scared her too ?

 

[Cowpony]

My first horse was 5 when she saw herself in the school mirrors for the first time. She was loose in the school and spent ages half rearing and preening in front of them, clearly wondering who the pretty horse was and why they wouldn't come out to play! Wish I'd got it on film.

 

[Tarragon]

I was riding my pony and leading my two year old along a quiet country road, when the youngster decided to jump the low stone wall beside him and into the field beside the road. I have no idea what triggered it. There was a drop into the field, so that the pony then found himself on the other side of a now much bigger wall, and unable to get back - even though he really didn't want to be left on his own!
Luckily, i was able to ride on a bit, with the youngster keeping up with me on his side of the wall, and find a gateway with a gate I could open, go into the field, retrieve the naughty pony, and continue on my way.

 

[Spotherisk]

When Tinner came home from backing he was brilliant but not naturally brave. Out hacking one day, OH on foot next to me, pottering along a lovely byway, and I’m wondering why OH is getting taller... no, horse has heard a rabbit rustling in the hedge and is literally buckling at the knees in terror!

 

[dorsetladette]

Walking my 'special one' out with my daughter riding her pony. We have 500yds of quiet country lane before we get to the forest to ride. This road is a bus route. Just out of the gate a double decker bus meets us coming the other way. B2's idea to avoid being eaten by the bus was to lay down in the road. Bus driver though is was hilarious!

Like IHW has, I've had a youngster leap sideways up a 6ft bank. The only way down is the same way you got up there!

 

[Flame_]

On an early pleasure ride on my last arab, we'd caught up with a bit of a queue to get through a narrow gap and had to stop. Horse only realised we'd stopped beside a terrifying boulder on my right hand side when there was no where to go up ahead because of another horse. It didn't occur to him to go backwards, he launched himself straight threw a hedge on the left and landed out on a country lane. He cut all his legs up and had to go home but at least we didn't land under or on a car. I swear I could feel him after we landed thinking and trying to process, what the hell just happened? What now? Total bemusement.

 

[StowfordPress]

My 5 y/o has successfully jumped 1m a tracks, but I have yet to convince him trotting poles aren’t going to kill him! I’m starting to question if it will always be a quirk he will have, he just cannot cope with those scary coloured things on the floor. Most recently we have learned that wheelie bins are also incredibly worrying, particularly if there’s more than one? But in general he’s a brave lad, just a little bit of an idiot!

 

[Ruth89]

My one has just turned four and will hack out alone past cars, tractors, bridges, galloping cows.

But going past the field that has sheep and lambs is terrifying for her. Doesn't like the baaaa noise ???