The Glory of Showing Young Horses

I hope everyone who sees this title immediately recognizes the irony, because the words “glory” and “young horses” do not coexist in a sentence. Starting and riding young horses is one of the least recognized aspects of riding professionally. I deal with the hard, dangerous, and tricky parts of a horse’s education, but few actually see what that looks like. I think many people’s understanding starts and stops with the input and the output of developing a young horse. From the outside it looks like you bring me a semi-feral, little, pushy, anxious 3-year-old, and I give you back a relaxed, calm 5-year-old that trail rides, is absolutely unconcerned about manic warm-ups, and has its changes. What I think many people are missing, is what the work in the middle looks like.

I don’t blame the general horse-owning public for not understanding the difficultly and decision making that goes into starting a young horse. How could they? That doesn’t happen in public (aside from colt starting clinics, but that’s an entirely different beast). Those first steps happens at home, in dusty round pens, quiet arenas, and hours of ground work. Rarely does anyone see every step of that process. You might see snippets, the really good parts caught on video and posted online, or the really bad parts, also usually posted online. But there are weeks, months, or years of a horse’s educated that go unrecognized by much of the equine community. Until one day, that young horse makes it’s public debut. For some horses it’s their first show, for others its their first fox hunt, and still others its their first ride with their owner. Whatever the moment may be, it is a big moment.

My most crucial job, as someone who prepares and rides young horses through all of those important firsts, is to give each horse the most positive and correct ride possible, and put everything else aside. If there is ever a time to put aside your ego, its the moment you step into a show ring on a 3-year-old. If I was to give advice on the subject, I would tell you to recognize that you are not there to satisfy your desire to win or to bring home a ribbon for the owner; you are just there for the horse. And the sucky part is, sometimes the decision to be there for the horse doesn’t make you “look good.” Sometimes that baby horse is so overwhelmed, or excited, or scared, or every single one of those feelings, that nothing works like it should. You have no steering, no brakes, or no forward, and you can feel everyone’s eyes on you, you can hear the whispers. And in that moment, you take a deep breath and forget everything else. You forget that you hauled 4 hours and spent $500 to be there. You forget that you had hoped to get a great sales video and that the owner is standing ring side. All you focus on is what that horse needs in that moment. Sometimes that means intentionally blowing your chance at a ribbon, sometimes that means excusing yourself from the ring and not pressuring your horse through the test, and every time it means putting the horse first. If you show young horses professionally, that is your most important job, and it can also be the most difficult.

It is all well and good to talk about putting the horse first, but actually putting that into practice, that can be challenging. As a professional, you are subjected to more scrutiny, and rightly so. You should model horsemanship, good decision making, and show everyone what putting the horse first really looks like. The problem is the other pressures that come from showing as a professional. There is the expectation to be in the ribbons, have a well behaved horse, ride a flawless round, and not make any mistakes. That’s your job isn’t it? People send you their horses, pay your entry fees, and then pay you more on top of that to pilot the horses around. And that’s the tension, you want to do well for everyone. The young horse and the young horse’s owner, not to mention you would really appreciate if this reflected well on your training program. The problem is when things go wrong in the show ring those sets of expectations can collide. That is the make or break moment that tests you. You can show up on a baby horse that you have done your very best to prepare for its first show, and sometimes it goes splendidly and everyone is happy. Sometimes, though, it doesn’t go to plan. That’s the exact moment when the decisions you make will have the greatest effect on that young horse. Everything that happens after that you literally have to ride out.