Horseback riding - minimum age

[BorisR]

We are planning a Kyrgyzstan trip with our 2 children, who will then be 2 and 5 years old and would like to add at least 1 horseback riding trip to our itinerary. Our children are ´experienced´ in traveling and hiking for their age but none of us ever rode a horse.

As we read that e.g. the Song Kul ride is possible for inexperienced riders, we thought it may be possible to do the trip anyway with each of the kids sharing a horse with an adult. I´m curious to hear if this is something that occurs more often and makes sense, or if it would be irresponsible. Is there in general a minimum age recommended by the tour companies?

[Christian77]

There are some steep sections where you absolutely need your feet to reach the stirrups and to do some balancing (and a kid grabbing onto you like a little monkey won’t help). And some inexperienced people in this case grab their saddle (and there is no Western style saddle horn to grab like a newbie). A Kyrgyz rider could manage with kids, but I wouldn’t try it without lots of riding experience and trust in a familiar horse). You could maybe walk the steep sections? But yeah, probably ask the tour company. Not a lot of extra room in Kyrgyz saddles though…

[BorisR]

Thanks for your input. We indeed also check with some tour companies but expected that they all would say that it was no problem to do it just to sell their tour. Now we got 4 replies out of which 3 advise against. Combined with your feedback this is enough for us to change our plans and have a look at car rental.