"Started Late": Some Thoughts from Planet Sport Horse.

Surfing around today, I was amused to note a Saddlebred for sale on one of the larger sales sites who was described as having been "started late"; it was already walking, trotting and cantering under saddle with show shoes on at the age of just-turned-three.

This is one of the bigger areas of difference between Planet Saddlebred and Planet Sport Horse. On Planet Saddlebred - as on Planet Quarter Horse and Planet Thoroughbred Racing - the philosophy is that the quicker you get them in the ring/on the track, the quicker they can get into the breeding shed. Not to mention there's a whole lot of ca$h available via futuritie$ for horses started very young.

On Planet Sport Horse, though, we USE our horses a lot longer. We expect them to not only stay sound longer, but to really PEAK, performance-wise, between the ages of 10 and 14. That means we bring them along a lot more slowly. On my planet, I want Quattro to still be (God willing) hale, healthy, sound and even competitive up to at least age 20.

So I guess you could say that in Saddlebred terms, Quattro is very definitely being "started late". But for a sport horse, his training is progressing right on schedule: long-lining at three, driving and lightly started under saddle at four, doesn't start doing anything even remotely serious under saddle until five, and the refinements don't start coming until six. As you can see - totally different game plans.

I'm not making any big value judgments either way here; I like a good Triple Crown (how awesome was the Belmont today, BTW - what a race!) and a hot young five-gaited prospect as much as the next person. I'm just trying to 'splain, for those who only work to the Saddlebred timetable, why Quattro is being brought along differently.

It's especially important in his case to take the extra time because he was bred to be hot and game, and he IS hot and game. But to really succeed as a sport horse, he's got to learn to relax. (Relaxation is the bottom rung of the Dressage Pyramid, GoonrGrrl style, remember?) Until he's swinging along with a low head and relaxed back muscles, this young horse is not ready to do anything else. He doesn't need to learn to rev the engine until later, because we don't want him to automatically "air himself up" when he sees a show ring the way the show Saddlebreds do: we only want him to put the pedal down WHEN ASKED, and NOT before.

For a couple of weeks now, he's been giving me indications that he was ready to move on from the indoor arena/round pen work. He has steering, he has brakes, he's already getting uncomfortably close to memorizing the patterns of figure eight and serpentine (in long lines, at a walk). So a few nights ago, I decided to venture outdoors with him in the lines and walked him down the driveway and back.

Someone here asked me whether it wouldn't be smarter and safer for his first outdoor adventure in the long lines to be somewhere with a fence around it, like a pasture. It's a good thought, from the human perspective; but sometimes the trainer has to think like a horse.

So let's examine it from Quattro's perspective. The driveway is someplace he knows like the back of his hoof; he has been hand-grazed up and down it EVERY evening since he arrived here at the end of January - at least, when it wasn't raining. There's nothing to see there that he isn't already deeply familiar with: he's friendly with the broodmares and foals who live on "his" side of the driveway; he's friendly - well, at least polite - with the herd of cattle who live on the "other" side of the driveway; he knows there's a big red hay barn with a tin roof that rattles when it's windy; he knows which bushes the bunny rabbits live in and are prone to jump out of. It's all familiar, and nothing is a big deal.

Compare and contrast to putting him out in a 50-acre pasture that he's never really SEEN before. Different herd of horses, different herd of cattle, OMG what's THAT, it's an outdoor arena with (gasp) a Judge's Stand, THAT might eat me... And are those DEER?

Which do YOU think is going to lead to the calmer, and more relaxing experience for this particular horse?

Hope you picked this one!



He maintained that same nice low, relaxed headset all the way to the end of the drive and around the "V" at the end. I was really pleased, because it means we can really get the Summer Games well underway - which consist of hoofing it all over the county, so he gets to see more of the world and learn how to react appropriately to it.

At the end of the drive, Quattro was given his "Drive Me Home!" command - which is exclusively a GoonrGrrl thing, and is by way of being an experiment. You see, his predecessor HRH Avery learned "Drive me home!" by accident - I used to say it to him as a joke, but you always have to be careful what you inadvertently teach Smart Heese. I found this out the hard way when, out for a drive, I said conversationally to him "Ya know, Avery, I think it might be time for you to Drive Me Home." Whereupon he calmly and neatly executed a 180 and started doing exactly that! :-) A few years later, this SAVED MY BACON in a huge way, when we were out for a Sunday drive right after lunch, and I was taken by a severe case of food poisoning. I was dizzy and vomiting and could not even sit on the bench seat of the cart - I slid down onto the floor and slumped sideways. Between bouts I kept croaking "Drive Me Home, Ave-Man" and God bless him, he did - at a decorous walk.

The more I work with Quattro, the more convinced I am that if brought along slowly and carefully, he actually will be that kind of horse some day. So I'm starting in with the "Drive Me Home!" command early, hoping he will learn that it means he should proceed homeward at a walk, park himself (and later the cart) neatly in the barn aisle outside his stall, and wait for the humans to unhitch him. We'll see if it works; it may or may not, but it's entertaining and Does No Harm.

The adventure continues! At a low, relaxed walk. ;-)