02/02/2026
One of the most common fallacies I hear is "oh, they're young, they don't need their teeth done" and "well they're young and we did them last year so they're good".
Most young horses actually need more frequent dental care than their "aged" counterparts.
Young horses go through lots of dental changes before the age of 5. They gain teeth, lose teeth, and also have an increased eruption rate. This gives plenty of opportunity for issues to develop, and the faster eruption means that imbalances become more extreme in a shorter period of time.
Let's look at these 3 horses. All pictures were taken before I did any dental work.
The first horse is a coming 3 year old I floated for the first time back in July. In July, I extracted this horse's wolf teeth, placed bit seats, and softened the buccal (cheek) edges of the molars. If you look closely, you can see a little bit of the bit seat left on the 6s (molar closest to the front of the mouth). But this horse has erupted and worn so much in the last 6 months that his cheeks have become quite sharp and he's about to lose the 6 caps (baby teeth). It's not uncommon for the bit to pull the against the 6s, that's why we remove wolf teeth (located right in front of the 6s) and place bit seats. These lose 6s were likely quite irritating, so I extracted them and softened the buccal edges
The next horse is also a 3 year old, but has never been floated. She had upper wolf teeth, loose 6 caps, and sharp buccal edges. All of this likely contributed to her head shaking tendencies when ridde , and I expect her to be much happier post float.
The last horse is a 4 year old that had been floated by another dentist fairly recently. He still had pretty soft buccal edges and a fresh bit seats, but based on the appearance of the 8s, his last float likely occurred before the 8s were loose. He had lost all his 8s, but had a cap fragment stuck to the roof of his mouth near the 208 (upper 8 on the horses left side). It also appears as though the lower 8s were shed much sooner than the upper 8s because the lower 8s hyper erupted and began to dominate. Had this been allowed to continue unchecked, this would have likely turned into a much larger wave complex that would have began to restrict anterior/posterior movement (front/back movement of the lower jaw). Restricted A/P movement often makes collection much more difficult and may cause the horse to gape.
I would like to see the 3 year old in 6 months to ensure that they lose their 7 caps and to place bit seats (since there was not enough erupted tooth to place a bit seat on after extracting the cap).
I wouldn't mind seeing the 4 year old in 6 months either to make sure the lower 8s aren't trying to dominate again, but since the horse almost to the point where all of his molars are in wear, I wouldn't be opposed to waiting a year either.
The moral of the story: young horses teeth do a lot of changing, and some of these changes can be painful. So have some grace when they start to struggle or get fussy with the bit. And keeping them on a 6 month schedule can help minimize the amount of time they're uncomfortable, which helps them stay on track in their training, prevents frustrating, and maximizes longevity of the teeth.
