Since event rider, trainer and coach Gwen Lehari and her husband Rein established Reindalyne Farm in Uxbridge, ON, 30 years ago, numerous young horses have been started under saddle at the farm, as well as many off-the-track Thoroughbreds who have come to be repurposed for new careers.
For more than a decade, Gwen’s eventer daughter Kendal, 26, who is shortlisted for the 2014 Canadian National Team, has been assisting her mother in training their own young horses and those owned by clients. The Leharis like to start young horses in the fall of their two-year-old year, put four to six weeks of training on them, then leave them for the winter before restarting them in the spring of their three-year-old year.
The Leharis have had great success with their systematic, consistent approach to training. Gwen handles the groundwork, then Kendal steps in when it’s time to back the youngsters and begin their under-saddle work. Here is their system for starting horses late in their two-year-old year.
Gwen: Learning from Day One
As soon as the young horses arrive here, they are in training, whether it’s learning to lead properly or standing in cross-ties. We work them six days a week, but only 15 minutes a session. They don’t break a sweat. It’s a learning process. We like to start them at two, as once they are three, they get a lot cheekier.
We start teaching them to lunge first. After they’ve mastered that, we’ll start long-lining them.
For the first lunge lesson, we usually divide the arena in half with jump standards and poles (as we don’t have a round pen), and we’ll bring them in wearing a bridle. We use a long-cheek snaffle most of the time, as it’s useful in teaching them to steer. I begin by leading them in a circle to give them the idea. Then I’ll have them move in a circle around me. I stay behind their hocks, keeping the whip pointed at their hind end. You don’t want to have a death grip on the lunge line.
I’ll have them walk and trot the first day and canter only if they offer it. Most don’t explode or tear around too much, but if they do, I just ignore it until they settle down.
By the third day, I’ll put a surcingle on them. It’s good to have someone help you, as the horse may jump around. When the horse is good with the surcingle, I’ll introduce side reins, but leave them very loose. I’ll put the side reins on in the stall and leave the horse for an hour to walk around and get used to the side reins in a safe space before I take him out to lunge.
Every horse is different and you may have to come up with creative solutions. I had one in that didn’t respect the arena walls and would bump into them. We have a small paddock outside with electric fence, so I took him out there to lunge him. When he touched the fence, he got a shock and even when I brought him indoors, he respected the arena walls after that.
Every day when I finish lunging the young horses, I’ll take them to the mounting block and stand up on it and play around with their tack, getting them used to having someone above their head.
When they have learned to go forward and accept the contact of the bit and can walk, trot, and canter on the lunge line, I’ll start long-lining them, beginning in the arena. As they get the hang of it, I’ll take them outside around a field and work them around jumps and over poles, little logs, and ditches. It’s great for desensitizing them.’
Kendal: Early Backing
‘By the time I get on a young horse, Mom has done so much work with him on the ground: he has already learned to how to stop, go, and steer, and I just have to add weight and leg to the equation. The day of backing, we lunge a horse with their saddle on and stirrups down. By now, that shouldn’t bother him too much.
We use a breaking saddle or a training saddle for racehorses, which is light and thin and I can feel every muscle if the horse tenses. I’ll hop up and down beside him first. At first, I’ll just lay over top of him and Mom leads him around. We read the body language and if he’s comfortable, I’ll mount, but I don’t put my full weight on him right away.
Mom will start leading the horse around the arena and gradually move farther away. He’ll be used to her voice and to her being in the centre of the arena. In a few minutes, she can usually take him off the lunge and I’ll go large and ride him around the arena a few times in both directions. With two-year-olds, I’ll only do canter if they offer it. Usually if you ask for a stronger trot through the corner, they’ll break into canter and get the correct lead.
Once they are going walk-trot well under saddle, I’ll take them out hacking with a quieter, older horse so they get braver and exposed to new things. After I’m finished the ride, I’ll mount and dismount about five times, then put them away.
We free-jump our youngsters once a week. With two-year-olds, we start free jumping over poles and cross rails. You can set a grid of poles 10 to 12 feet apart, depending on the horse’s stride. One of the things we’ve learned is that you have to adjust for the confidence level of the horse. If they go hot, we don’t let them rip around the arena and get up a head of steam. We’ll stop them when they come through the chute, then turn them back to go through it the other way.
We find free-jumping makes a huge difference when starting them over fences, because they learn to look for the jump right from the start and take care of themselves. This is what we want for eventing.
Watch for the rest of the ‘Developing the Young Event Horse’ series this year in the July and November issues, where the Leharis work with three-year-olds and four/five-year-olds.
