Kids on the Trail

in choosing a truly gentle willing horse. Enter the older horse.
Does it really matter if your sevenyearold firsttime rider manages only three good years with a geriatric horse before arthritis or lack of condition require putting the horse down? A few years is a long time to a school age child and bless you if you can give child and horse that precious time together.
Very often retired outfitter horses or pack string horses make great kids horses and a phone search of these businesses can turn up some good prospects.
Size counts. Big horses can be intimidating to children and the ground looks a long way down from the back of a tall horse. I did expect to find some big friendly BelgianClydesdalePercheron horses at the 4H program the type grandpa safely sat the whole family on when we were kids but not one was in sight.
Pony breeds such as Shetland and Welsh have earned a reputation for being somewhat headstrong and are often thought to be not the best choice for a child. I believe there may be some merit to that opinion. By comparison individuals from small horse breeds including the Quarter Horse Morgan Fjord Halfinger and Icelandic may in general have softer minds. However we have owned some excellent Shetland and Welsh crosses so be careful of generalizations.
Small horses have some limitations but not many. In our own herd of more than 20 horses it cannot be said that the smaller horses are slower when setting a pace on the trail. The speed at which a horse feels comfortable walking and keeping up is more a matter of the individual the breed training and habit. Some of our fastest walking horses are around 14 hands. On the other hand if you do an abundance of wilderness trail riding and cross streams and rivers smaller horses will struggle more when stepping over on and around rocks and boulders in a stream. They will be more prone to stumble and when water catches their belly more prone to go down. Personally I do not like to see a rider on a horse that is less than 14 hands on a trip with deep or fastmoving boulderstrewn water crossings.