Tips to wean daughter off of outgrown pony?

[Mare Stare]

As you may have seen from my previous posts we have a pretty Sec A gelding. However, my eldest daughter is 12 and has outgrown him. Her feet are already way below his elbows.

Anyway, I've seen a few local ponies for sale that would be much more suitable for her but she is refusing to have any of it. She won't even go to look at them. She wants to keep our Welshy forever even if she can't ride him.

I've tried to reason with her. I've already found him a good home at our riding school so she'll still be able to see him.

I've got tears. I've got tantrums. She hates me. She's threatening to run away with the pony .

How do other parents deal with this?

 

[ThePony]

Does it matter if she wants to keep him for ever and is happy with the compromise of then not being able to ride? I would leave her to it and see if her decision changes. If it doesn't then pat yourself on the back for bringing up such a lovely, caring girl!

 

[Spudlet]

If she wants to keep the pony even though that means not riding, is that such a bad thing? Why does she have to ride? Surely she's old enough to decide that - and if in a few months she changes her mind, then you have a home for him and you can reopen the subject.

 

[YasandCrystal]

Have you considered breaking the pony to drive? I did this with our 10hh falabella x and he loved it!

The kit is inexpensive - a secondhand cart will cost in the region of £250 and you can start with an import harness - I always used imported leather ones and never had a problem and they were around £70. Ebay is great to source webbing or leather harnesses.

You can get one of those picture guide books about driving. The most complicated thing is understanding how to fit the harness and your daughter can 'long rein' the pony around a paddock and get him dragging tyres etc. I had no knowledge of driving when I decided to break mine to it and it was all quite straightforward and commonsense and best of all great fun for me and the children She may surprise you and want to get into competitive driving!

 

[Tinseltoes]

I agree with the others.Let her keep her pony as she is attached to it. You could break it too harness as someone else said.

 

[Lolo]

Would it be possible to have the pony at the riding school on working livery for a few months, so she was still his primary care giver/ rider, but also found her a pony to ride at home. After a few months, suggest that he could be a 'proper' riding school pony, only keeping a similar arrangement going with the riding school with buy-back guarantees and the likes?

 

[AmyMay]

I'm another who agrees with allowing her to keep the pony.

 

[frustrated]

One of the best ways is not to sell but to loan out. Your daughter can then see him being ridden and loved by another little girl instead of stuck in a field bored.
While he's on loan get her another pony, make sure its a craker,soon she will bond with the new one and it will be easier for her to let go.
Remember every pony needs a little girl of there own, and she needs to let him
do what he's done for her all over again for another little girl.
If all else fails break to harness he won't be the first pony that this has happened to and i'm sure he won't be the last.

 

[team barney]

Let her keep the pony, your daughter is displaying loyalty and commitment that should be encouraged not worn down.

I would never have forgiven my family if they had made me get rid of my pony, who also happened to be my best friend, it doesn't matter that they are no longer conventionally useful to you they are truly irreplaceable and it would have broken my heart to lose my pony as I expect it would your daughter's to lose her.

Riding isn't the be all and end all, your daughter could have great fun driving her pony or ever just working in hand and playing with him.

 

[Lolo]

I don't want to sound horrendous, but ponies are bloody expensive pets. When her daughter is old enough to earn a wage and contribute then I can see that as a feasible option. Until then you do need to get something out of the arrangement I think. We've had ponies we were horrified to see go, and sobbed for days afterwards. Neither my sister nor I are scarred for life, we love our parents dearly and both still enjoy riding.

If you can afford to replace pony without selling him, find him a loaner/ sharer who'll keep him at yours and then find her another pony?

 

[indiat]

Another one who says let her keep him! Your first pony is very special and my daughter lost hers this easter. She was elderly and developed kidney and liver problems and we had to PTS, although daughter thinks she died in her sleep. Before anyone criticises me, daughter is only nine and I think she would have felt responsible if her pony was PTS. However, despite the fact she really had no choice but to move on, it wasn't easy. We found her a lovely pony who has a fantastic nature but she struggled to bond with him and I think they are only just beginning to develop a partnership. I don't think she will ever feel the same way about him as she did about her first, even though she was so badly behaved we nicknamed her Walking Evil. I honestly think that to force a seperation would be devastating. Let them explore other things together. If she misses riding so much she eventually agrees to give him up, then it will be her decision.

 

[ThePony]

I don't want to sound horrendous, but ponies are bloody expensive pets. When her daughter is old enough to earn a wage and contribute then I can see that as a feasible option. Until then you do need to get something out of the arrangement I think. We've had ponies we were horrified to see go, and sobbed for days afterwards. Neither my sister nor I are scarred for life, we love our parents dearly and both still enjoy riding.

If you can afford to replace pony without selling him, find him a loaner/ sharer who'll keep him at yours and then find her another pony?

True, but generally since an adult decideds to put in the childs life an animal that they are very likely to develop a strong attachment to, then you need to be prepared for the repercussions! What you 'get' out of the arrangement is the bond with the pony - that is enough of a 'job'.

 

[Lolo]

True, but generally since an adult decideds to put in the childs life an animal that they are very likely to develop a strong attachment to, then you need to be prepared for the repercussions! What you 'get' out of the arrangement is the bond with the pony - that is enough of a 'job'.

I know, I'm just trying to say that many times my sister and I had to move off ponies we were hugely attached to, yet neither of us (despite similar threats to the OPs daughter!) actually gave up nor held a grudge for more than a week or so.

It was worse for my sister, who grew out of ponies ability-wise often before she did height-wise as she was quite tiny but would win herself out of the heights the pony was happy doing so either had to stop competing or move on...

 

[Clodagh]

I'd let her keep him, if she doesn't want to ride then fine, or she may realise she is missing riding and decide herself to move on.
Unless shes huge shes probably OK to do a bit of light hacking anyway - with the risk of opening up the 'people riding small ponies debate' again.

 

[MissSBird]

I think that a little bit of patience might be the trick. If she wants to keep the pony, even if it means no riding, then say she can and strictly enforce the no riding policy, even if the pony can actually carry her weight. You'll probably find a couple of months of all the work without fun will change her mind and she will then come and broach the subject with you voluntarily, particularly if she sees others her own age out having fun with theirs.

This is what a lady on our yard did, and her son rapidly changed his mind. As much as it's nice to think we'd all happily keep horses without riding, the truth of the matter is that the vast majority of people would change their minds on that, adults and children.

The other thing I've seen work is getting the second pony now to ease the attachment to the first pony, but obviously that may not work in your circumstances.

And if she is the very rare creature who will keep her pony happily without riding, perhaps come summer breaking to harness might be a good option for her

Good luck!

 

[QueenOfCadence]

Let her keep the pony if it makes her happy . Isn't that what horsemanship is SUPPOSE to be about? A bond?

It makes me rather sad to see how the equine world has changed into seeing horses as no more than a tool to compete with... If she's happy with not being able to ride her pony but being able to keep it - don't stand in her way

My mom tried to get me off of my first pony yeeears back and onto something much more competitive, like a nice GP Warmblood - I also absolutely refused and I wouldn't trade my first pony for anything

Mind you I'm still on my first pony, still competing him against "competitive warmbloods" and doing quite well . Even though I currently only have ONE horse (my first pony) people often ask me to school or ride their horses in my free time - so I have no general lack of steeds XD, and I don't feel that keeping my pony has negatively effected my riding career - I can handle 17.3hh WBs just as well as I can handle ponies

So to cut this short - let your daughet keep her pony. I wish that more horsemen could be like her

Here's a photo of me and my first pony still going strong (he's my best friend and even if he was 7hh and I couldn't ride him - I would never consider getting rid of him to get something larger):

And here is the general size of horse that I get to ride regardless of making the decision to keep my ponio :

 

[team barney]

There is many different forms of love when it comes to girls/women and their ponies/horses.

There is the love you get over a week or so after the pony is sold.

Then there is the love that stays with you for a lifetime.

I still have my pony, he is as much loved now as he was then, I have stuck by him through thick and thin whether I have been able to afford another horse to ride or not. He was my first love, and the love I felt for him never subsided.

Competing and riding are irrelevant if the love you feel for your pony is true. I won't stop loving my dogs when they are too old for long walks and I didn't stop loving my pony because I got too big for him.

 

[nikCscott]

Do you have room to get another to make the change over more seamless?

The 'farmer's daughter' in me agrees that for me horses are not pets, when I was young even though we lived on a farm we could not afford to have a string of ponies so when the time came we'd find a bigger pony usually a youngster to move up to, then sell the previous pony, we were lucky that we had the ground to do it and having the new pony in place definitely made the transition less painful.

Hope you find a solution that suit your situation, love the learning to drive idea this is something we hope to do with our sec a when he has been out grown and then my mum can drive him.

 

[Tinsel Trouble]

If it is financially possible can you not combine the two main suggestions here- put the current steed on loan/ at livery and get a new pony- with the new one occupying the time and the knowledge that the old pony can come back on a moment's notice you may find that should you come to selll the old pony it is less of a heart break... it is all about timing though, and make sure there is no pony-free period! If you're able to have them both at home and have a sharer come onto the yard you could manage to have your cake and eat it...!

 

[tinap]

I have been in that position & will be again pretty soon!! Daughter was 12 & had outgrown her pony. She knows I can only afford 1 so she had the choice to keep her & not compete or ride as much or sell her & get another. She decided to keep her, then when her friends were out & about she soon got fed up & we sold her! Now she's nearly 16 & will be out of ponies next year. However she has taken the mature approach being a bit older & even though he is her soulmate & best friend she has decided not to do the full year on him & sell him in the spring so that she can have the summer to look for her first horse.

I think at 12 your daughter is old enough to decide. She will soon miss riding & give in!! Good luck xx

 

[Ibblebibble]

give her time to get used to the idea my daughter outgrew her old pony about 18months before we sold him, at first she wouldn't contemplate letting him go, she felt safe on him and she'd had him since she was 4. I didn't push it because every time i broached the subject we had tears, and she's very good at tears and looking so very sad In the end her friends were all talking about pony club and jumping etc and she decided that perhaps it was time to let the little fellow go and get something bigger so we advertised him this summer and off he went, she still misses him but she is equally as in love with her new pony
But if next spring she still doesn't want to let him go would it really be a big problem for her to have him as a pet? Some people are just as happy having horses/ponies in their lives without having to ride as those who do ride

 

[Millie82]

I'm 30 yrs old and I cried reading this post! I could never let go of my daughter's 40'' shetland. I hope when my daughter outgrows her she will feel the same too, but that pony is my friend too After all my daughter is only 5 so it's me who cares for the pony when she is at school. We have only had her 6 months and already I love her far too much to ever let her go myself. In fact I am dieting to get under 8.5st so I can occassionaly ride her too x

 

[Miss L Toe]

As you may have seen from my previous posts we have a pretty Sec A gelding. However, my eldest daughter is 12 and has outgrown him. Her feet are already way below his elbows.

Anyway, I've seen a few local ponies for sale that would be much more suitable for her but she is refusing to have any of it. She won't even go to look at them. She wants to keep our Welshy forever even if she can't ride him.

I've tried to reason with her. I've already found him a good home at our riding school so she'll still be able to see him.

I've got tears. I've got tantrums. She hates me. She's threatening to run away with the pony .

How do other parents deal with this?

I am not a parent, but once I was a child, and I loved my pony, and I still regret my father ignoring my wishes, sometimes you have to love your child enough to help her out, she is only a child.

 

[Tinseltoes]

I don't want to sound horrendous, but ponies are bloody expensive pets. When her daughter is old enough to earn a wage and contribute then I can see that as a feasible option. Until then you do need to get something out of the arrangement I think. We've had ponies we were horrified to see go, and sobbed for days afterwards. Neither my sister nor I are scarred for life, we love our parents dearly and both still enjoy riding.

If you can afford to replace pony without selling him, find him a loaner/ sharer who'll keep him at yours and then find her another pony?

Sorry dont agree with you,Child should keep the pony.. My daughters whose 13 1/2 has a pony and Id never part with her,shes a sec A whose about 11.1 hh. Shes just a pet.
Its me who looks after her and the Cobblet.

 

[skint1]

Ah the ponio debate, I remember it well

We kept the pony, (a section b who belongs to a friend of ours and lives on a farm where we share field/stable) If I had it to do over again I am afraid I would take Lolo's view, eventually you'll get another horse, your daughter's life will get busier and she may not have time for pony AND horse. The pony may not take to driving (ours is trained to drive before we had him but was not really reliably safe enough for it) you run a risk of having a pony with no job in the end.

Best way to do it imho is get new horse,( make sure it's a suitable one or she'll cling more to pony-ask me how I know this) overlap them for a while til daughter bonds with it, then sell/loan out pony

unless of course money/livery is no problem for you and won't be in the future, then I guess you could keep the pony and try and find a rider for it (this didn't work with ours, mostly because of where he is kept)

 

[Brandy]

I'm probably not best placed to answer this - I have a 30 yr old, a 24 yr old and a 10 yr old. Although I have sold ponies in the past, there are two that I will NEVER part with.

Is your daughter too heavy to ride the pony? Many Sec A's can carry a teenager easily. If she is not too heavy, then don;t worry about it. Also, I would go down the driving route - if the pony does take to it, she could have endless hours of fun driving the pony and still get to keep him. I would let her outgrow hm of her own accord rather than force the issue - she may end up thinking, hang on, I could have a nice 14.2 to ride and a nice little girl could benefit from my pony. She may not. I nevre had a pony as a child (poor me....) but friend did. One went through ponies like you wouldn;t believe, and never really minded them being sold. One I know still is bitter at her parents for selling her 13.2!

 

[zoelouisem]

I loaned my daughters first pony out for a year, and got another on loan the second was amazing and when her first pony came back after a year I told her she couldn't keep 2 and she was 2 big for her first, she helped choose the new little girl who her pony was going to look after and that made her feel better.
I wouldn't have allowd her to keep her first pony as a non ridden she would have ended up fat with lami and that wouldn't have been fair on the pony and to be honest I don't have a horse because I can only afford 1 and a pony is an expensive pet to keep!!!

My advice loan the pony out then you can say to your daughter she still owns him and if he's not been cared for properly she can have him back!! They all to soon get involved with a new pony.

 

[Jemima_P]

My parents has the same problem with me years ago!
When it got to the point where I couldn't ride him anymore, they had a chat with me, I decided that I loved the pony too much and didn't want to risk sending him off again (he had been in and out of riding schools all his life), so I kept him and took up in-hand showing, which he turned out to be pretty good at!
10 years later.. he is still out there in the field, happy as larry. 2 years ago, when I was earning enough to support him and another horse, I bought my youngster, and now he's passing on all his wisdom to her

It's a difficult situation, but I know personally I made the decision to stop riding (occasionally ride a friends horse or a lesson when I had birthday money etc) so I could keep my old pony and I haven't regretted it for a second. My parents decided to trust me and he has since turned his hooves to lots of things except riding and we've had alot of fun together.
Hope you get it all worked out and there aren't too many tears

 

[juliag]

I would definitley not force her to sell her pony. I am a mother of 6, all of whom have ridden and we currently have 4 ponies and 2 horses. I have sold outgrown ponies in the past when the kids have been happy to do so but we still have our old faithfuls. I think my girls would have hated me if I had made them get rid of them. Basically its you that wants her on a bigger pony and thats fine but if she doesnt want it then thats fine too! I remember as a child my friend susie was 'forced' to sell her beloved Sandy for a bigger horse by her father. She told him if he got rid of Sandy she would never ride again. Sandy was sold whilst Susie was at school and true to her word Susie never rode again even though new horse was delivered and had to be resold with her never having sat on it. It also spoilt her relationship with her dad as she said she could never fully trust him again.
I had my pony Dover until well into adulthood and he died of old age. He is now in a oak casket in our living room 15 yrs on! (we had him cremated). I could never have coped if he had been sold, he was my best friend. Ponies are not just for riding, they become part of you.

 

[FMM]

Children are well known as being very emotional - and turn it off from one second to the next. Yes - she will be upset when her pony goes, but as people have said, you do not need to have a healthy pony as a pet - it is far better than your daughter understands that the pony has got years of fun ahead of him teaching little children all the things he has taught to her. It is more of a matter of explaining what is going to happen as opposed to simply the fact that he is going to be sold.

She is old enough to deal with that I would have thought - of course she will be upset - no one wants to lose a family friend - but the fact that he will go on to have years of teaching children and having fun, rather than sitting in a field waiting for her to get fed up with not being able to ride (which will come very quickly)

My son (10 years old) was devastated the day his pony went and although he knew that he was going to a lovely home (spent the morning grooming, spraying show sheen and oiling his feet as I was at work so he did it all himself) he was still terribly upset when he waved goodbye to him. However, he bonded very quickly with his new pony and although he still asks about Addy and wants to see all the facebook pics of him, he realises that Addy is having far more fun with his new owners than he would have had with us.

So I would sit her down and treat her like and adult. Of course it is commendable that she feels loyalty towards her pony, but in equal measures, she need to be mature enough to know when the time has come for her much loved equine companion to move to another child.

She will recover, and far more quickly than you would think!