We asked Larry Reinhold from Lone Tree Ranch, what age of horses do you use there?

"I've said for years it takes about a seven year old horse because there's a lot of fellas, a lot of people can sure turn out a good broke horse, you know, and the horse is three or four years old. A good rider can get on them and keep them going the right direction. But, you know, when you're putting kids on them, and some of these kids might be good riders, but you've got a horse that you're putting three or four different riders on each day, it's pretty easy to mess up a young horse. And, you know, because they get so many, so many miscommunications from the different riders that it plays with their head and it seems kind of like the old adage, an old dog, new tricks. It's really pretty handy to have something that's been, you know, got some age on it. We like what would make just about any outfit a good ranch horse."

The Reinhold family lives on and operates the Lone Tree Ranch and Rainbow Bible Ranch, a well-known and well-loved summer ranch camp for kids and teenagers.

https://www.facebook.com/larryrobinreinhold/

https://www.lonetreeranch.net

The same question today that we've been asking the rest of the horsemen this week, what age do you start your horses?

Today we're going to dig into the Howard Hale archives, and pull up an interview from Bruce Sandifer.

So how old do you like to start your horses, Bruce?

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Now let's check in with this archived interview with the late Howard Hale and Oregon trainer and horseman Mike Bridges. The same question today that we've been asking the rest of the horsemen this week. What age do you start your horses?

"When I was a kid and a young man, you didn't start horses till they were five, six years old. Sometimes four, but most horses were five or six when they were started because they had to go do a day's work. You rode every place. We didn't have trailers and you rode to your work and you rode back. So horses had to be older when they were started. They were much tougher to start because their mind was set. They already knew where they fit in the herd and they were more reluctant to step down."

"Today, we start these horses at two. You have to be careful not to ride them very much and to be cautious of them until they're four. But the mind is much more pliable when these horses are two-year-olds. They don't, they don't, they have no idea. They don't know where they fit in the herd yet. They're still trying to shake out their position and depending on their personality. So they're much easier to create the starting process of it."

Oregon horseman Mike Bridges.

Mike has a clinic going on this week. Find the information below!