# How often should I ride my 4 year old green broke?



## Roman (Jun 13, 2014)

I'd ride maybe 4 days a week, do groundwork on one day, and give her one day off. Like in between a day you ride and a day you do groundwork. 

I'd probably keep it fairly short 20-60 min.
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## churumbeque (Dec 20, 2009)

20 minutes isn't enough to bother with. 40 minutes would be the minimum or they will want to start quiting early. I would ride at least 5 times a week if possible


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## trailhorserider (Oct 13, 2009)

This is an interesting topic as I have a 4 yr old also and often grapple with the same question. 

I try to ride him every-other-day for 2-4 hours. Usually only a couple of hours. I find that if I can ride him consistently like that, he's much calmer and less spooky. Sometimes I ride him on back-to-back days and sometimes he goes a week although I aim to ride him about every-other-day.

I really don't know how much is too much. I don't want to over-do it, but I want him exercised enough to focus on me and be calm too.

Can you over-do the exercise on a 4 yr old if you are riding for pleasure mostly at a walk and some trotting? (We ride trails, some hills but nothing major).

Also, do you guys lunge or round-pen beforehand? I used to round pen every time I rode him, but this summer I have gotten him to the point I can just take him out "cold" and ride him. That was one of my goals and we accomplished it. I know there will be times I will need to round pen after a long break, but I didn't want a horse I had to round pen before every ride, know what I mean?


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## BugZapper89 (Jun 30, 2014)

A 4 y/o stock breed and green would be a 7 day a week 2 or 3 ride a day horse. They would be considered behind in their training and many trainers charge a premium, to do the catch up work.


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## Clava (Nov 9, 2010)

My 4 year old is only ridden every now and then, but this doesn't worry me, I'm happy for her to mature slowly and start serious ridden work next year.


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## smrobs (Jul 30, 2008)

Any riding is better than no riding at all, so a 20 minute ride is better than skipping a couple of days, but when I'm training a young horse, I like to spend at least an hour on them, 5-6 days a week.

Most pleasure riders cannot ride a horse hard enough to overwork them, so ride as long as you want, as often as you want. On difficult horses, it's not a strange thing for me to ride them twice a day, once in the morning and again in the afternoon.


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## QHDragon (Mar 6, 2009)

I started riding my mare when she was four. She hadn't been ridden much and was pretty green. We just did basic walk/trot riding and then started adding poles, jumps, and cantering as she and I got more confident. It isn't about the length of the ride its about the quality of the ride. If you are working on something and then suddenly have an "ah-ha!" moment, its perfectly fine to end on that, even if its only 20 minutes into the ride.


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## trailhorserider (Oct 13, 2009)

BugZapper89 said:


> A 4 y/o stock breed and green would be a 7 day a week 2 or 3 ride a day horse. They would be considered behind in their training and many trainers charge a premium, to do the catch up work.


I don't know of ANYONE that rides ANY horse that much. Even a green one. Maybe a professional trainer with a show prospect. But even then, I'm sure they have other horses to ride. You would have to devote your entire life to that horse every day and be independently wealthy. :lol:

I know the guy I sent my horse to didn't put in that kind of work. I'm not sure if that is a good thing (since the horse was only 2) or a bad thing (since he didn't get all that much training). When my colt came back he didn't even want to bridle and didn't know how to back out of the horse trailer. And he was already used to saddling and me sitting on him in the round pen when I sent him out......so it's not like he was a bronc fresh off the range.


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## beau159 (Oct 4, 2010)

Kinda depends on the horse. Some NEED to be ridden every day and some are okay going a few days in-between.

If you have the time to ride every day, great! Do it!

I wish I had the time to ride my 3-year-old each day. Although I suppose part of that has to do with the fact that I don't have to ride him each day. He's so laid back and easy going he rides the same whether I rode yesterday or 2 weeks ago. 

And it depends what you do during your rides. If you were just walking for your 2+ hour ride, that's hardly going to over-do it on a young horse. But if you expected to gallop the whole time, well then that would be hard on their young body. 

So it's really not so much the amount of time you spend on them, but what you are doing during that time. 




BugZapper89 said:


> 2 or 3 ride a day


2 or 3 rides per day per horse?

I can't see how that would be financially feasible for a horse trainer. You need to take in X number of horses per month to make ends meet and if you need to ride each one 3 times a day? Well, there are only so many hours in the day to get everything done.


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## BlueSpark (Feb 22, 2012)

> Can you over-do the exercise on a 4 yr old if you are riding for pleasure mostly at a walk and some trotting?


 nope.

I like to give them at least 4 days a week for the first 2-3 months. I honestly cant do two rides a day, nor feasibly 6 or 7 days a week. Once past the 2-3 month mark I just ride as often as I can, sometimes 5 days a week, sometimes 1. In the winter, depending on the temperature, I wont ride for weeks.

Working them on consecutive days is better than splitting them up.

I Know personally that wet saddle blankets are more important than anything else the first months. Worry about refining leads, head carriage and the other things later, for the first few months I get them out and about, long rides, lots of miles. They need to learn to be solid about carrying a rider wherever they are pointed, going as fast as they are cued, stopping, backing and turning. I started my 4 year old this spring. She got worked 3-5 days a week, whenever I could. After the first few rides We got out of the arena, and just covered the miles. She is a pretty solid trail horse at this point, and I am working on refining things. So I guess it all comes down to a couple things really.

first, that it is easier to refine a horse with a good foundation than it is to patch holes in a poor foundation later.

second, that a horse should absolutely ride well whenever you choose to ride. I HATE having a horse that turns into a half broke monster after a week off. Expect the same behaviour every ride.


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## smrobs (Jul 30, 2008)

I'm with Beau on the 2-3 rides a day thing. I can manage 2 on a horse that _really_ needs it for the first few days, but trying to squeeze in 3 rides on a single horse in a day is really pushing it, especially if you are doing that day after day after day. I suppose if you only have a couple of horses that you are training or if the rides are kept very short, then that would explain it, but once I'm on a horse, I prefer to give them a good workout, not just fly through things so I can get done quick.


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## Invert12 (Aug 26, 2014)

I don't have the time to ride 2-3 times a day, that's the main problem. I've missed maybe 5 days over the 3 weeks or so that I've had her. I walk and trot the most, not a whole lot of cantering. 

She has her good days and bad days, which annoy me. Her main problem is not paying attention to me, and looking at everything else.


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## smrobs (Jul 30, 2008)

LOL, that's a pretty typical green horse thing. About the best thing I've found to help that is doing something to keep them occupied, something where they have to be listening every second....and get after them when their mind wanders by putting them in harder work for a minute or two.

That, and time. Saddle time is the only thing that will ever make a saddle horse better. Whether that takes you a month or a year doesn't matter much. So long as you and she are getting along and she's progressing, that's all that matters.


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## horseluvr2524 (Sep 17, 2013)

As everyone else said, take it slow. Give her time to mature. I think in the early stages it matters less how much you ride but more the quality of your ride. So when you ride, make it count. Expose the horse to as much as possible-trailering, group rides, cars, dogs, quads, bikes, carriages/wagons (my horse freaked the first time she saw horses being driven lol). I think it's more important to spend time outside the arena than inside when they are young.

For the record, Frederic Pignon and Magali Delgado breed their own lusitano performance/dressage horses. They don't saddle a horse until they are four, and don't ride them until they are five. Plenty of time for the horse to mature.

So don't expect too much too early, basically.


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## PaintHorseMares (Apr 19, 2008)

BlueSpark said:


> second, that a horse should absolutely ride well whenever you choose to ride. I HATE having a horse that turns into a half broke monster after a week off. Expect the same behaviour every ride.


This is what we use to gauge how often to ride the young ones..._consistency under saddle. _We try to create a lot of variety, short rides, long rides, different times of day, ring, trails, fields, roads, etc. This has always worked well and appears to reinforce with the horse that, when under saddle, it's my time to do and go where I want. When the saddle comes off, you can do whatever you want. In my experience, once you get that consistency, you can leave a horse in the pasture for months and still saddle up one day and have a great, "no fuss" ride.


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## Hackamore (Mar 28, 2014)

The old saying that “wet saddle blankets make broke horses” is fact. They don’t get broke if your not riding them and the more time under saddle the better they get. 
 With that said I do realize that most people do not have time or land access for long rides on a consistent basis so commit what time you have and keep in mind that hoses learn best with consistency. So your horse will benefit more from 3 days back to back then they will from riding every two or three days. 

Best of luck.


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## QHDragon (Mar 6, 2009)

Wait there are actually people out there that do training rides two to three times a day on the same horse? Must be nice to have that much free time! But in reality that sounds like a fantastic way to sour a horse's mind and body. The stock horse world is doing their horses a great disservice with the lunge line classes and this idea of having two and three year olds dead broke for futurities.
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