SHOULD I BUY A GREEN HORSE?

From time to time I hear from people who are looking for advice regarding buying a new horse. Usually, they ask me about breeds, age, size, experience, etc because these factors are already on their shopping list. They know the breed, size, age, and experience they want. Sometimes they have a particular horse in mind by the time they get around to asking me.

One factor that is on many people’s list of “must have” is a green or novice horse or a weanling. Often they are looking for a horse that has not been started under saddle and has only had the absolute minimum of handling. Almost always the reason for this is that people do not want a horse that somebody else has messed up. They don’t want to inherit problems that other people have created and that they have to undo. They are looking for a horse that is a clean slate.

In my opinion, for many people, it is a bad idea to shop for a horse with minimum handling

First of all, there is probably no such thing as a “clean slate”. Even horses captured in the wild have some experience with people. So it is a mistake to think that any horse will arrive at a new home with no experience of human handling.

But more importantly, it assumes that a lack of previous training makes the job of progressing with the training easier. We don’t have to undo bad training and can move on with our ambitions of Olympic glory. This premise is often wrong.

Here is where a lot of people’s dreams come unglued.

If a person does not have the skill to fix mistakes made by earlier training, then they do not have the skill to ensure they don’t make mistakes in a horse’s training. The knowledge and skills required to re-train a horse are the same as those needed when training a young horse the first time around. If you can’t correct a problem like a horse that is heavy on the reins, you probably don’t know how to make sure you don’t teach your green horse to not be heavy on the reins. Even with the assistance of professional training, you are going to need to learn new skills and gain new knowledge to avoid inadvertently teaching your green horse not to be heavy on the reins. 

I do understand the desire to buy a horse that has as few training problems as possible. Nobody wants to spend huge amounts of time and effort undoing mistakes that somebody else created. However, people need to be realistic and honest with themselves. If you think it is a good idea to purchase a horse that has had so little handling that nobody has screwed it up, make sure you are a good enough trainer of young horses to not create the problems you are trying to avoid.