# 5 Year Old Child - Lessons - what should they involve?



## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

I would not personably be comfortable with a child that young jumping. Even on a perfectly well-trained small pony. I don't like it. I'd wait a couple of years. I mean, trotting over small crossrails, sure. But for me personally, nothing beyond that.


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## Bandit123 (4 mo ago)

ACinATX said:


> I would not personably be comfortable with a child that young jumping. Even on a perfectly well-trained small pony. I don't like it. I'd wait a couple of years. I mean, trotting over small crossrails, sure. But for me personally, nothing beyond that.



Thank you, this mirrors my feeling. I wasn't sure if i was being too much in my logical mom mind!


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

I would ask the instructor to spell out exactly what she means by 'learning to jump' at this stage. She probably means trot poles, raised poles (maybe 3 inches) and a very low cross rail or 2 (6 inches in the middle of the X at the MOST) and more trot poles after the 'jump' to make the horse stay low and slow. I'd be ok with that kind of thing, especially if she would start your child doing walk overs on a lead line and work up to trot overs on the lead line before doing it without any kind of attachment. I think the child needs to understand the chances of falling off again too, even if on a very small pony, and I really think ponies at this stage of the game are all the child ought to be riding. Otherise, you get to the point where the child gets too afraid and doesn't want to ride anymore if they take too many falls from big horses too early in the game.


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## Danneq (Sep 18, 2020)

We've talked to my instructor about when my nephew will be able to ride. She doesn't do riding lesson for anyone younger than four (though he did get a pony ride once, it was adorable). They have a shetland cross (about 12hh) who all of the very little kids ride, and then they can eventually graduate to a bigger pony (about 14hh). As far as I've seen, all of these lessons are with someone right by the horse's head. The youngest one I know who is doing jumps is eight years old; she also has horse fever bad, she basically lived at the barn over the summer.


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## Ringo-Slater (7 mo ago)

I would not let a kid jump at five especially by herself. It just seems like an accident waiting to happen. I say just keep her doing what she’s doing and if she needs more of a challenge ask the instructor about leading her over a raised cross rail like mentioned above.(If she cannot easily step over it on the ground she probably should not be jumping it on a horse.) I would personally wait till she could walk, trot, and do the next speed, a canter on her own before thinking about real jumps.


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## QtrBel (May 31, 2012)

Bandit123 said:


> Without going into too much details, she shouldn't have been on that big a horse and the instructor wasn't anywhere nearby.


 You're correct. A 5 year old doesn't belong on a horse. They need an animal sized to their ability. If they are on a horse it better be with the instructing adult right there with their attention focused on the child.



Bandit123 said:


> As i'm not in the horse world, I wasn't sure what was 'normal' in terms of what she should be doing/size of horse she should be riding. My gut was telling me it was unsafe and I really wish i'd listened.


 She should be on a pony. While there are horses considered safe for a child to learn on they are few and far between. Adding the size of a horse into the equation and you take an already dangerous sport and increase the likelihood of a tragic accident.



Bandit123 said:


> Here's my concern, the new instructor has mentioned learning to jump.. she's been walking and trotting over poles but i'm not sure a 5 year old should be jumping? Or is that perfectly normal?


If she can handle poles then crossrails are the next step. She should not be on a horse. She needs to be on a pony. Whether she should depends on her ability, balance and willingness to listen to her instructor. It also depends on whether there is an appropriate sized animal to learn on.


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## Knave (Dec 16, 2015)

I guess I have mixed feelings on this that differ from the others. Our kids are mainly started on horses, rarely do you see ponies. Ponies tend to be looked at negatively, although I really like them.

A five-year-old can look a wide variety of ways. When I take my girls to the gymkhanas I watch all the littles. Some are pretty handy, and some aren’t, and there is no judgement there. One may be being led, while one is running a pretty good barrel pattern. Shoot, many of our littles are out working horseback alongside their parents.

Yet, I do see something I dislike at times. I really don’t like to see a little who is over horsed. Even as they get a bit older. I see some parents mounting their children on pretty hot horses, which is fine if they can ride them, but it’s not fine when there are tears and petrified looking children. I remember when mine were littles, stepping up and stopping a horse who was about to buck a little off, and her parents never even came over. Then when they did they just degraded the child for crying.

Over horsing a kid is always wrong in my opinion. It makes it not fun. There is no judgement for a kid going at their own speed. They are little.

Would I let my littles jump, back in the day? One I would have, and one I wouldn’t have. It just really depends. First and foremost for me comes the child’s confidence, and they danged sure had better be able to handle what they are riding.

As a parent, if you feel something telling you she’s not ready, don’t let her do it! You do need to trust those gut feelings.


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

5 year old girl jumping 2'6" But she's probably been riding since her mom was pregnant with her. These littles turn into absolute Cosacks with just a little bit of training and a good horse!


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## Bandit123 (4 mo ago)

Thanks for all of your advice. The current pony appears to be quite calm, unfazed and a much more appropriate size than a horse. Based on the responses here i will double check what 'jumping' means and ask instructor to keep cross poles or trot poles to a few inches high maximum. Thanks again


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## Acadianartist (Apr 21, 2015)

Um, no! No way, no how I would let a 5 year old jump. You haven't mentioned whether she has cantered yet - it's pretty common for a horse or pony to canter on the other side of a jump, so that will be an issue. 

Honestly, take it way, way slow with a child this young. It's so easy for them to get a traumatic experience that will scar them for a long time. They simply do not have the coordination or the cognitive abilities to process all the things you need to be doing at once while riding. She should be on a lunge line in my opinion, but since she is already riding independently (with instructor beside her), then I wouldn't go backwards, but would find some fun games she can do at the walk with a bit of trotting. Is she able to brush and tack up the horse by herself? In my experience working with young children (my daughter runs a small lesson program and I sometimes help if she has more than one student at a time), that can take them a solid 30 minutes because they struggle with a lot of it due to their small size. 

My own daughter started when she was 6, but really didn't do very much until she was around 8. That's when she asked if she could learn to jump. It was another year or so before she popped over her first crossrails on the safest horse in the yard. And she was riding twice a week at that point. She is now 17, and an Equestrian Canada certified coach who has won a few championships, but she didn't really start progressing significantly until she was into her teens.


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## Robert Atwood (Apr 27, 2021)

Bandit123 said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> I'm a non-horsey mother to a horse mad 5 year old.
> 
> ...


Please find him a pony for at least 5 years, then maybe if the fad has not worn off, look at a horse.


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## RoadRider / Rios Dad (Jul 2, 2009)

Robert Atwood said:


> Please find him a pony for at least 5 years, then maybe if the fad has not worn off, look at a horse.


Ponies can be bad and harder to ride then a horse
This little girl, don't know her age is riding my spirited endurance horse
He just knows and will act the perfect gentleman


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