My purpose for writing about Deb Bennett's EN article was not to make anyone feel bad or guilty or feel they are going to get slammed if they take a 4 year old to a competition. I just found the article very interesting and learned something new that has changed the way I look at my young horses. It is just one more bit of information we have when it comes to managing our horses. Everyone can use that information in the way they see best for their horses or their program. I am the first to admit that I never knew that some of the structural parts of the horse take so long to finish growing. I just thought it would be an interesting topic on EN as I wondered how many riders out there realized these facts and I thought it would be an interesting discussion specifically about endurance horses because we spend so much more time in the saddle then other disciplines even when horses are first introduced to LDs. I can't think of very many other horse sports where a young horse may be have a rider on their back for three hours blocks of time in training/conditioning or ridden in competition for up to 6 hours. I found it interesting that it is fairly common to have 4 year olds competing in eventing. I find that the technical aspects of that sport, the jumping and the duration would put even more stress on a young horse than endurance. When do you have to start training an eventing horse for competition at 4 years old to be capable even at the lowest levels of cross country, jumping, and dressage?
