what do you think?

[BlizzardBudd]

so... theres a boy at my friends yard he is 13/14. he started riding a pony for the owner (his mum has a horse there). this is who he first started riding on. when he grew out of the 13.3hh he really wanted to have another. the yard owner had recently bought a 3.5 yr old and sent it off to be backed, she reckoned that the 4 yr old TB would be fine for him to have. so he trialed it and they bought it

is it just me, or is the combination of an inexperienced rider and horse not a good idea?

he has also been bucked off a fair few times and the TB has got quite a few bad habits

just wondering what your views on it are

 

[gugglebum]

I guess it just depends on the support & guidance the boy has around him. They could learn & grow together and develop a fantastic partnership, or the wheels could come off. Lads this age can be pretty fearless which may prove a bonus given the circumstances, they'll only be as good as the person overseeing the process.

 

[Trish C]

It doesn't sound ideal, but I think gugglebum is right... with the right minding it could be fabulous. Or it could all go horribly wrong, but couldn't most things?! There's no way of knowing, it'll be one of those "I told you so"/"hindsight's 20/20" things either way!

 

[tasteofchristmaschaos]

If the horse and the boy have the right attitude then there is no reason why this can't work. However if one of them doesn't then it has the potential to go wrong of course.
My old hunting pony was only 3.5 when I started riding him (was sold as a 6 year old but owner didn't have him vetted) and we developed nicely together. But he had a real 'tryer' attitute and I was always looking for ways to help him out and taking advice. We learnt to love hunting together, and also how not to get my hands stuck in his 3 foot mane whilst jumping! The hardest part for us was getting a canter transition, his legs would just kind of go everywhere and bam, we were cantering! Took a lot of patience and effort to sort that out!
I would also say the likelyhood of sucess/failure would depend on what the boy wants to do with the horse - for example if they wanted to do stressage, trying to teach the horse to do it whilst they boy is learning then it would be tough, but if they are looking for a happy hacker it would be easier.

 

[BlizzardBudd]

this-aft when i went out for a hack with my friend (i was walking) a\nd he was galloping around the field, the horse threw a massive buck chucked him off and galloped off into a farmers field, crossed a road and went about 10miles from home before we could get after him.

my friend jumped off and checked to see if the boy was ok, i grabbed the hat dumped my rucksack took a mobile and went after the horse luckily it ended up that a girl had seen him canter across the road so followed him down a country lane and caught him. the woman who's house it was had stables so we turned one of hers out and popped the 2 in them to calm them down. in the end the woman trailered them up and took me home (after lovely hot chocolate)
it was an un-expected adrenalin pumped start to the afternoon. we had only gone on a gentle walking hack