The Kindergarten Years

Part 1: Experts use the weanling-to-3-year-old stage to prepare the young dressage horse for success.

- Diane K. Skvarla

Just as we carefully prepare young children for school and life by playing with them, teaching them lessons and taking them on excursions, young horses need a similar education. There are enormous lessons to be learned before the young horse is backed.

The traditional approach is to leave youngsters out in a herd for two to three years with occasional handling before bringing them into the human world to be backed. However, Canadian Grand Prix dressage rider Shannon Dueck points out, “You are then counting on the breeding to determine their trainability, and they have to learn about people, stables and ground manners in a very short period of time. That’s a big change for them and can be quite stressful.” It can be argued that the early years should not be wasted. In Part 1 of this two-part series, we learn how early lessons provide the first steps in establishing trust in humans, influencing the young horse’s natural instinct to flee.

Case Study: MW Angelika

The critical “kindergarten years,” from six months to 3 years, can determine how the horse will behave for the rest of his life. For her talented filly, MW Angelika (Angel), Dueck wants to “stack the deck for trainability.” When breeding her Grand Prix dressage mare Ayscha, in 2014, Dueck turned to Jen Vanover of Maplewood Warm bloods, in Middletown, New York. Vanover selected the Hanoverian stallion Franziskus as having the best chance to complement Ayscha and make the most improvements. Once Angel was born and Dueck saw the filly’s potential, three of her long-time clients joined her to form a syndicate, Ayscha’s Angels, to support Angel’s journey of training to Grand Prix.