This message is from: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Juliane Deubner)
Hi Anneli, Lindsay
Thanks for your replies. I fully agree with what you are writing.
I am actually surprised that I did not get more responses. Does that in
fact mean that people here give their horses more time to actually grow up
before they start to seriously work them? In Europe - I am from Germany
originally - most people seem to be very aware that especially the old
breeds like icelandics and fjords are 'late bloomers', and should be given
more time to mature. But even other breeds are usually not started until
they are at least 3 years old. When I first came to North America, I was
really surprised to see horses advertised that, at 2.5 to 3 years of age,
had already been extensively ridden - I would never buy them, because a lot
of these horses are not sound anymore by the time they reach age 10.
The german fjord horse association actually states on their web page under
breed information that fjords mature late, but I could not find any such
information on any of the american or canadian fjord web pages. To me this
is a very important fact about the breed.
Greetings Juliane
