Young horses can be more or less difficult than an older, trained horse depending on how you look at it, and depending on the quality of the training of the older horse.
What I mean by this is that young horses have fresh minds - for the most part they are unspoiled by bad training, and they probably haven't developed negative associations to people or riding, or picked up bad habits that may be annoying or even dangerous. In this way, young horses can be much easier to work with because you don't have to change as many behaviors, you just need to teach them new ones.
On the other hand, young horses have had less interaction, so they are generally not as good at generalizing and figuring out what you want them to do as an older horse who has had, for example, many riders who all give slightly different cues. The older horse has probably learned what people generally want from him and can better offer the right answers, where a young horse may offer all kinds of different behaviors.
With a young horse, I have found I need to be very clear and specific in what I want them to do, and also not get frustrated if they don't get it. There are a few keys to working with a young horse that I like to keep in mind, and today I thought I would share them with you.
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