Art Nouveau
Well-Known Member
Long post, sorry! I went to try out a potential new share horse today but I'd appreciate some advice 
I'll try to lay this out clearly.
Horse is a 15.2 TB, 9 year old ex-racer, bay gelding.
Ridden in a loose ring, single jointed snaffle with rubber cheek guards, flash (fairly tight) and running martingale.
He is sway backed but his saddle has been made to measure.
His bit is about 0.5 inches too big.
He hasn't been doing very much over the last few weeks as he had problems with his hind feet and had his back shoes taken off. He's about to be reshod and the owner has been hacking him out recently without any lameness/soreness in his hind feet. She has started bandaging his front legs though for riding as apparently his tendons were getting swollen when ridden since the back shoes were taken off.
There's only a grass area to school on which is on a slight slope and a couple of places have to be avoided as they are uneven. Hacking isn't great so riding options in winter are going to be limited.
To ride he is fairly forward going - brisk but not running away with you. He is very fussy with his head and was sticking his tongue out a bit when the owner was riding. The owner did canter him on both reins but from a walk into canter and was on the wrong leg both times.
When I rode he was difficult to keep straight sometimes and picking up a light contact had him chucking his head around. His back end would swing out on a circle, but that could be because he hasn't been schooled for a while. I liked that he didn't need a lot of leg to keep him going and when he wasn't messing with his head he did a beautiful leg yield.
Canter - going into canter he threw in a few bucks and was then very stilted. As the ground was a bit wet the owner didn't want us to canter round a corner which meant there wasn't really space to push beyond the bucks and see if we could lengthen and overcome the stiltedness.
I asked the owner about the bucks and what he's like in an arena. She said she thinks he's a bit fresh and overexcited, and doesn't tend to buck going into a canter when in an arena, also that he's sticking his tongue out because he hasn't worked in a while. She had done some prelim dressage with him over summer and scored around 60%.
So my question is - do you think the fussy head, sticking his tongue out, lack of straightness, bucking and stilted canter should make me walk away as being symptoms of an underlying problem? Particularly as there won't really be anywhere to school over winter.
Or do you think he was just a bit fresh, being a TB ex-racer, and with a bit of work will be lovely? I've only ridden an ex-racer once and he also bucked going into canter so is it a racer thing that's easy to overcome?
The owner did say he could canter in an arena and was having fortnightly group lessons on him before the leg issues at a school up the road. However, she cantered him on the wrong leg twice and didn't seem to realise. For me, a fussy head tells me to look at other bits, not put on a flash, martingale and rubber guards. I'm torn between thinking she's the owner so knows what's best and he will be fine with more work and thinking that perhaps she doesn't really know what's going on.
Any comments welcome
I'll try to lay this out clearly.Horse is a 15.2 TB, 9 year old ex-racer, bay gelding.
Ridden in a loose ring, single jointed snaffle with rubber cheek guards, flash (fairly tight) and running martingale.
He is sway backed but his saddle has been made to measure.
His bit is about 0.5 inches too big.
He hasn't been doing very much over the last few weeks as he had problems with his hind feet and had his back shoes taken off. He's about to be reshod and the owner has been hacking him out recently without any lameness/soreness in his hind feet. She has started bandaging his front legs though for riding as apparently his tendons were getting swollen when ridden since the back shoes were taken off.
There's only a grass area to school on which is on a slight slope and a couple of places have to be avoided as they are uneven. Hacking isn't great so riding options in winter are going to be limited.
To ride he is fairly forward going - brisk but not running away with you. He is very fussy with his head and was sticking his tongue out a bit when the owner was riding. The owner did canter him on both reins but from a walk into canter and was on the wrong leg both times.
When I rode he was difficult to keep straight sometimes and picking up a light contact had him chucking his head around. His back end would swing out on a circle, but that could be because he hasn't been schooled for a while. I liked that he didn't need a lot of leg to keep him going and when he wasn't messing with his head he did a beautiful leg yield.
Canter - going into canter he threw in a few bucks and was then very stilted. As the ground was a bit wet the owner didn't want us to canter round a corner which meant there wasn't really space to push beyond the bucks and see if we could lengthen and overcome the stiltedness.
I asked the owner about the bucks and what he's like in an arena. She said she thinks he's a bit fresh and overexcited, and doesn't tend to buck going into a canter when in an arena, also that he's sticking his tongue out because he hasn't worked in a while. She had done some prelim dressage with him over summer and scored around 60%.
So my question is - do you think the fussy head, sticking his tongue out, lack of straightness, bucking and stilted canter should make me walk away as being symptoms of an underlying problem? Particularly as there won't really be anywhere to school over winter.
Or do you think he was just a bit fresh, being a TB ex-racer, and with a bit of work will be lovely? I've only ridden an ex-racer once and he also bucked going into canter so is it a racer thing that's easy to overcome?
The owner did say he could canter in an arena and was having fortnightly group lessons on him before the leg issues at a school up the road. However, she cantered him on the wrong leg twice and didn't seem to realise. For me, a fussy head tells me to look at other bits, not put on a flash, martingale and rubber guards. I'm torn between thinking she's the owner so knows what's best and he will be fine with more work and thinking that perhaps she doesn't really know what's going on.
Any comments welcome
