Too young to be ridden?

In Niger, horses start being ridden at far too young a age, sometimes not more than a year or so. With Maya, we let her run along for the first few weeks, but when she started getting too daring on her own (peeking into people's gardens on our way out of town and hunting the herder's goats when out in the bush), we decided to give our 2 year old a try and see if what she was like. Nettus and I fought over who (wouldn't be the one) taking her out, and the lot fell on Nettus, who weighed less than I. It was a interesting ride but not a comfortable one - we only tried her out for a few minutes before deciding that the horse needs to grow a lot more before one of us will be comfortable to take out her. So Maya went back to being a filly again, which answers the title question with a big YES, despite regional norms.

Ishtar