First time riding the foal outside

Shirin is the club's second foal. The first one was Soltan, a colt, which we sold several months after it was three years old (for some reason, we don't keep male horses). I think I rode Soltan only twice. Shirin is a filly currently 32 months old, and here I want to share part of our journey with her until we rode her outside for the first time.

We take foals outside behind us on trail rides when they are about 2.5-3 months old. This has a big learning effect on them, learning from the environment with all its unpredictablities outside. Then we start grooming, and cleaning their hoofs a bit after they are 6 months old, The same time they are separated from their mother. Getting used to rope for guiding is done somewhat later slow and steady, No hurry on that stuff.

After that, there isn't much specific training from us until 2-2.5 years old. But as I said we try to take the foal on our trail rides as much as we can. In my opinion, the difference between getting a horse that is 4-5 years old or more and having a foal from day 0 is the connection that shapes between you and the foal. Some of the horses are more than 5 years with us now but still, the bond we have with the foal is stronger. It's like the foal feels much safer and relaxed near us.

We start teaching the horse how to lunge at about 2-2.5 years old. Getting saddled, putting bit, and riding the horse starts when the horse is 2.5. You might think that these parts take a long time but as I said about the connection between the foal and us the process goes much faster and smoother than taking a new horse 2.5-3 years old horse. It seems like there is a sort of trust between us and the foal which makes everything a lot easier.

So we lunge, saddle, lunge with saddle, and start riding the horse inside manege before starting to ride outside. For Shirin these steps went easy and smooth one by one. The next step was riding her outside while she was 32 months old.

We start riding horses seriously when they pass 3 (it also depends on how big they are and how much they weigh). But before that, we start riding them with light riders and very short trails. For Shirin, this started when she was 32 months old.

Actually, the first outside riding (not a complete trail ride) happened about 3 weeks before this. We had gone on a trail ride for breakfast and took Shirin with us coming behind us (you can see the VLOG here). The thing happened was when we ate breakfast and start getting prepared to get back, Fardin (one of the riders) noticed that his horse which was Shirin's mother was limping a bit we decided to try riding Shirin for a bit until we reach somwhere that one of us can go back home with foot and the rest would continue the ride back to the club. We didn't know if Shirin would let someone ride her or not. She was ridden inside manege but never outside. We tried and it went perfect. As I said for a very short bit of the path.

So the first outside riding was that but the first complete ride outside happened 3 weeks later. We groomed her then saddled and then went out for a very short ride (I think it was less than 45 minutes) with light rider and even with that Fardin (the rider) would come down and go with foot the parts of the trail that we thought might be too much pressure. Like for example the downhills which would put more pressure on horse legs. Fortunately everything went well we also did some canter.

Our plan is to repeat these light rides every 10 days or 2 weeks until she gets 3 and then we will probably put more pressure.