Breaking Horses not Bones: Properly Raising Young Horses to Avoid Costly Injuries
Determining the best age to begin training young horses is a heated debate within the equine industry. While many believe that horses should be skeletally mature when training begins, others believe it is unnecessary to wait 6 years until skeletal maturity. An online poll by an equine feed company indicated that 79 percent of their followers felt horses should begin training around the age of skeletal maturity (>4 years old) and 21 percent felt that horses should begin training before 2 years of age.