I have a question for everyone. What is your opinion on the use of spurs? My trainer told me I will need to use spurs on my filly, becuase she is not paying attention to my leg pressure. I have never used spurs and am leary of them. Any advise?

first off, spurs used properly are in no way cruel, so if it is necessary to use them, i would gain experience on an older horse, not your filly. secondly, it is not uncommon for young horses to be unresponsive to leg pressure, they simply do not understand what you want yet. I use very specific ground exersizes for my young colt that teach him on either long lines, lounge line, or free in pasture, round pen, or arena to move forward with clucks and voice commands, when i broke him to ride, i used leg pressure in conjunction with the verbal commands he respended to quickly, and over time the verbal commands become less frequent and the response to leg pressure is understood. while this may require you to back track to ground training it saves a young horses sides from becoming dull from eary use of spurs, esspecially by a person not familiar with them, and over time she will be as unresponsive with the POW spurs i would recomend starting with, if at all, as she is to your leg, forcing you to then us spurs with rollers and such that can actually cause your horse harm. i can not stress to you enough that going back to basic ground training can change your horse forever, and not just until you dull her sides with spurs, essecially if you adopted a draft cross, they are sweet and loving, but have a tendency to ignore leg, and spurs, unless you have a strong training foundation based on mutual respect, no on whips and spurs, they just dont work in the long run.....its not worth it when they are young, i would be able to offer more specific help if i knew more about your horse and your trainers background on the style of riding she teaches and the kind of horses she is experienced with.....it makes a world of difference, i would love to help you i any way i can

I used a dressage whip when teaching my colt to move over, trot in hand and such things so when I started riding him, I also carried it and used it to supplement my leg. He now moves very nicely off my leg after about 8 rides. I didn't have to hit him, just taps and he's smart so he figured it out.

Thanks for the responses. I did use spurs for the first time on Bella last Tuesday and again on Thursday. It doesn't take much pressure and she is reponding. I am hoping that once my class is finished I will not need them on her. Please keep your responses coming.