I backed Cally a few weeks ago and have been doing lots of hacking in walk. In the school we are doing lots of walk/trot/halt/back transitions and trying to establish some steering. I still think of her very much as a baby.
The importance of getting the basics right was reinforced by my friends green horse who has some problems because her early education wasn't well established. She was backed, put into the RS and then sold a few months later. She has no steering. It's like riding a barge: you ask for a turn and she just blunders on till she is about to bump into things then turns.
But when I bought my first horse he was only 4 and recently backed. Because I bought him as a 'backed' pony I just treated him like any other pony and never gave his age a moments thought.
And at a Mark Rashid demo he was asked how he brought on youngsters, I think in response to a question about whether someone with a 4 year old was doing too much, He said they were 'started' and then soon afterwards put to work: ie up to 8 hours a day on the ranch. He said many people treated horses like babies way too long in his view and they didn't need that.But he did not define what he meant by 'started'.
So what do others do? When do you stop thinking of them as 'just backed'.
The importance of getting the basics right was reinforced by my friends green horse who has some problems because her early education wasn't well established. She was backed, put into the RS and then sold a few months later. She has no steering. It's like riding a barge: you ask for a turn and she just blunders on till she is about to bump into things then turns.
But when I bought my first horse he was only 4 and recently backed. Because I bought him as a 'backed' pony I just treated him like any other pony and never gave his age a moments thought.
And at a Mark Rashid demo he was asked how he brought on youngsters, I think in response to a question about whether someone with a 4 year old was doing too much, He said they were 'started' and then soon afterwards put to work: ie up to 8 hours a day on the ranch. He said many people treated horses like babies way too long in his view and they didn't need that.But he did not define what he meant by 'started'.
So what do others do? When do you stop thinking of them as 'just backed'.