To ride a one eyed horse?

FionaDenmark

FionaDenmark

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Hi all. I have a 15 year old Danish warmblood that I bought as a companion for my other horse. The warmblood is an ex trotter (won 6 races) but her trotting days are long over as she lost one of her eyes to an infection. She was ridden once, years sgo apparently. For the last 7 years or so she has had a couple of foals with the owner that we bought her from and hasn't done much else.

She has the best, calm and stable personality despite only having one eye, never spooks or reacts to anything and she's been like that since the day we brought her home a few months ago. She's in excellent health. My question is this, do you think we could try riding her or would it be too much with her only having one eye? If we did ride her it would only be some relaxed rides around some big fields and forests nearby.
 
I have ridden a one eyed horse quite safely. It's personality was very similar to that which you are describing. However, this horse was still in regular work right up to losing its eye and almost immediately after.

I think perhaps it is worth a few tentative small rides to see firstly how she feels about being ridden again, and secondly how she copes out and about with just the one eye.

But do keep in mind the easy going personality and character of a horse only ever handled by you on the ground could be a very different horse with a rider on its back.
 
I have heard of one eyed horses being ridden and I have recently seen a one eyed child’s pony being advertised for sale.

I think the bigger issue might be that she has been out of work for quite a long time, had a few foals and is also getting on in age a bit. I would definitely get her looked over by a vet or physio to see if she would be up to ridden work, she is presumably very unfit.
 
I know of 2 horses which have been ridden with one eye and one who was blind in an eye. The blind in one eye horse still went eventing but needed to be careful hacking on roads as it was the right eye. Another friend who's horse had to have his eye removed still does dressage, she no longer jumps him but he is older anyway. One which I know that lived in my village still went team chasing with one eye.

It might be worth getting the vet to check the remaining eye before restarting her.
 
Herewegoagain said:
I have heard of one eyed horses being ridden and I have recently seen a one eyed child’s pony being advertised for sale.

I think the bigger issue might be that she has been out of work for quite a long time, had a few foals and is also getting on in age a bit. I would definitely get her looked over by a vet or physio to see if she would be up to ridden work, she is presumably very unfit.
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This, I’d be less concerned about the horse having 1 eye and pay more attention to the fact the horse hasn’t been ridden in a long time.
If you wish to restart riding I think you need to work on bringing them back into work correctly (ie groundwork / long reining to build back their muscle strength etc before you get on board)
 
i know of flat race horse, she was born one eyed and she is fine with it.

On the ground, sometimes, she has strange reaction but when you know her, she is good.
 
I used to ride a tb with only one eye. She came out of racing that way. The only difference to my other horses was to remember to speak when approaching on her blind side and mount on the side with the eye.
 
Mrs. Jingle said:
I have ridden a one eyed horse quite safely. It's personality was very similar to that which you are describing. However, this horse was still in regular work right up to losing its eye and almost immediately after.
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My fav Connie became blind in one eye. I rode her and would have been happy to continue. I had to stop because she became more spooky and the RS insurance was a problem. There was also a difficulty with the bridle strap possibly coming too close to the eye. The melanoma was a tragedy as I had been about to buy her and give her an easy retirement as a private livery.
 
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This girl does dressage on her one eyed mare
They do fab work
 
My mate's horse had his eye removed. It took him a wee while to get used to being ridden again, but he's fine now, back to how he was before he lost his eye.
 
Many horses manage fine in work with one eye. One well know show jumper from Scotland competed successfully, he did tilt his head approaching a fence. I have known a child's pony who lost her eye when she was older. After a period of adjustment she did Pony Club quite happily.
 
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