Finding The Right Level of Horse

It is important to get the right level of horse for your child.  As parents, we think our kids are capable of anything.  They may be good ropers, good riders and even good trainers but the right level of horse can make a huge difference.

When my daughter was 13, she wanted to start breakaway roping.  We didn't really own a breakaway horse.  But we thought that we should buy her a younger horse and train it.  Then she could grow up with it. 


She had trained horses before. She was very good with young horses.  She had even taken Reserve Champion in the state 2-handed show.  But she had never trained a rope horse.  


We bought the horse and sent it to a calf horse trainer for 3 months and brought it home.  Then, we started entering her in rodeos.  She never had a good shot in the rodeo.  She was more worried about making sure the horse was doing things right because she did not want to mess up her training.  She was just learning to rope herself.  She had to focus on what the horse was doing and what she was doing too.  Each weekend she was just more frustrated.  She wasn't learning and neither was the horse.


So we sent the horse to my brother in law to rope on for a year.  Then we went out and bought a 20 year old rope horse.  He wasn't pretty but he was solid in the box.  He gave her the same shot every time and she learned to rope.  


The point is we need to find the right level of horse for each kid.  Sometimes they are not ready for a 1D barrel horse or state champion rope horse.  They may just need a good solid seasoned horse that they are comfortable competing on.  Kids learn things about pockets, positions and roping from a horse that knows what it is doing.  Then they can apply that to a young horse.  It is really hard to train a child on an event and train a horse at the same time.  


By the way, we got that rope horse back a year later.  In that year, my daughter had learned to rope and she was ready to move on from the old horse.  Her and that horse have went on to qualify for state high school finals and National Little Britches Finals several years in a row.  They have won a lot of breakaway ropings but she need to learn on the old horse first.