Introducing a 3.5 yr old to ponies

[BobbiFleckman]

The wonderful lady who keeps her horses in the fields around us is moving a well behaved small pony into the paddock in front of our house to allow DD to get some handling experience. She's used to feeding and patting but we will now get a headcollar and brushes to get more stuck in. Obviously I'll get to know the pony first to check out her temperament (trust the owner implicitly though, she has excellent judgement and knows horses), am also very safety conscious - presume we should get her a hard hat even for this sort of handling (& me for the example urg).

Any suggestions on how you'd start a small child off? I don't think hoof picking or anything foot / tail related is a good idea but how do you teach horse sense? I'm no novice myself but have never combined small children with horses before. I want her to learn about horses in a way that a half hour lead rein lesson can't give, particularly with the insurance requirements at riding schools these days which seem to mean kids can't even tack up / rug up etc. - but she is only 3.5
would love to hear from those of you who live with horses and nippers.

I'm no expert at all but DD's 2.5 and has been around ponies for a year now, riding as well as all the rest of it. She's basically learned by watching me and the friend we ride with, listening to what we're saying. She has a go at brushing (if you can call it that!) bringing head collars when we're catching the ponies, helping get feed into buckets etc.

There are two ponies, one of which is bomb proof and the other more grumpy. She knows she's not allowed to go near the grumpy one while she's eating or being groomed and tacked up, and that she's allowed to approach her if she's with an adult. She is able to brush the bomb proof one when I'm there.

She rides both happily.

I agree, there's no better way to learn. She knows and experiences more than I ever did when I was learning at stables!

how did you get the safety message across without scaring her? has she had her foot stepped on or been barged at all?

No, never anything like that. She just got it really quickly. I've always said quite sharply never to get too close to their legs and she took it on board. She's stood in the field while I've been jumping and so she's been quite close to a cantering pony.

I've also stood with her in another friend's field with two huge horses charging towards us to say hello and she didn't flinch. She might have inherited a certain fearlessness from me (which isn't necessarily aways a good thing which is why I just keep reinforcing the safety issues).

thanks for that. I"ll update once pony turns up tomorrow and I've had a play myself :-)

Good luck and enjoy it! There's nothing better than a small person with ponies

A hat is a MUST! Just tell her to never approach the back, and if she does, then do scare her a little! Explain what could happen. We tell them that they can walk around the back, if they stay close, start at the head and keep a hand on the rump so the pony knows they are there. Bein trodden on is a hazard, but a nice chunky pair of boots will help.

TBH a little fear/respect around horses isn't a bad thing in a child. You can never be too careful. We let the little ones pick out the feet, but never kneel down to do it.

great disappointment over the weekend - the hay bales haven't been collected from the paddock, so no pony yet. She's been looking out of the window for her every 30 seconds or so...
(& Saggy - i had the "being trodden on" conversation over the weekend, explained that it doesn't hurt at all provided you're in boots, & it would completely destroy Lelli Kellys. That's the kind of fear she understands)