DVD/book driving lessons/ referral please

[alexb.]

Getting all,
I am looking for an instructional DVD for my 11 year old daughter and myself to give us lessons on proper techniques when we are cart driving with our mini we got couple weeks ago. He is very well trained as far as we can tell, but because of our ignorance of what is right/wrong/or possible,,, we are probably missing out on allot, or worse, untraining our little guy or frustrating him. He was pro trained and been in shows by his original owners, whom we did not meet.
We are in Joshua tree California, allot of horses, but no mini's we know of, to get advise from.
We have a loner cart, and tack, and a quick ride with friends we got him from, but looking for more info, hoping you all can help me filter out a choice for Christmas gift.
Thanks in advance
Alex

 

[Performancemini]

I know you will get good responses here to your question. I would suggest looking up Star Lake Tack online. They are a mini farm and tack sales. They have a good number of DVD's and books on various miniature disciplines and they are all very good. If you cannot find a miniature farm that does driving in your area; you might try to find a large horse stable that participates in driving events. I found a Morgan horse farm that gave driving lessons and they taught from from grooming to harnessing to hitching to driving. It was a great experience. I even trailered my minis over to take a few lessons with. They loved them and asked if THEY could drive them a little!

 

[alexb.]

Just signed up with http://www.giddyupflix.com

Videos on the way

 

[Performancemini]

Wow! I didn't know about that site. They have a lot of good titles. I really like the Patty Cloke DVD's. She explains and shows things in very easy to understand ways.

 

[alexb.]

Haha, yep, I ordered all her dvds first.

 

[diamond c]

Since there are a lot of big horses around you, I would find a trainer that you like and use them. The technices are the same just a size differance good luck and have fun.

 

[drivin*me*buggy]

I wouldn't stay with mini specific dvds/books.Good training is good training-no matter the size of the equine. I am a bit of a book/dvd/clinic junkie and enjoying learning from alot of sources. I don't train my horses for the show ring, I train them to be sane, sound driving horses.

Some of my favorites are:

The dvds from Clay Maier. He has a series that includes Beginning longlining, Advanced longlining and Training the driving horse. I have them all and love them. I was able to see him recently at Equine Affaire in MA and really enjoyed his clinics.

I recently bought Bending the Driving Horse by Muffy Seaton. It is an interesting dvd and a technique that I look forward to exploring more. I saw her at Equine Affaire a few years ago and really liked her.

A good Book for beginners is The Essential Guide to Carriage Driving and Carriage Driving: A logical approach through Dressage training.

I also really like Driven Dressage with the Single Horse.

I have quite a horse library that I have built over the years.

I really really like 7 clinics with Buck Brannaman and anything by Mark Rashid as the basis for all my horsemanship, groundwork on up.

A few online places with good articles are:

http://www.green.meads.com/Downloads.html

I took a clinic with Jeff Morse (Green Meads Farm) a few years ago and loved it.

And

http://www.coachmansdelight.com/CGuidePage.asp?pg=GUI

Lots of good info here too. I saw Andy at Equine Affaire a few years ago and he was fun.

Hope this helps a little. Good luck!

Angie

 

[alexb.]

Thanks again, will stay working thru the list as we go on.

 

[paintponylvr]

OI - driving books and videos! I, too, have been building my library (s) over the years... Especially since I decided I needed to get back into driving (or rather get past JUST ground driving which I've done for almost 30 years of working with horses) and couldn't, at first, afford the lessons with some of the locals who also were wanting more advanced students or students who were only interested in competing and would guarantee going "up the levels" (I'm still not that sure that's the direction I want to go and right now can't because of time constraints).

I have found several books and videos that I truly don't care for, but that COULD BE because I'm definitely further along and just found them frustrating to read thru or watch. They were all on the pricey side!

Some that I've been delighted with, surprisingly, were the Draft Horse books (and videos). Even if you dont' think you will be driving a pair or multiples in the future - the two books called "Training Work Horses; Training Teamsters" and "The Work Horse Handbook" - by Lynn R Miller are great books with many examples of various breeds of horses. Yes, they do concentrate mostly on horses that are going to be working farming, but they also cover so much more and have LOTS OF PICTURES (I like).

A good training book, that is very in-expensive and sometimes on sale, is Doris Ganton's "Training the Driving Horse". She now has a video out to go with it, but I haven't had the chance to view it yet.

I LOVE the video by Mary Ruth Marks - "Teach Your Horse to Drive - Lesson 1 & 2".

You can find lists of videos and books here - http://www.americandrivingsociety.org/ and then once you have the list of those - check out the various mini horse sites on this Forum. They will have many of those books and/or videos. Another place to look is http://www.ruralheritage.com/ Again, once you have the "list" made up - search out eBay or Amazon or even your Giddy Up Flix and get what you are looking for.

OOOO - Thanx Angie! It's been a number of years since I watched Clay Maier at a Horse Expo here in NC and I hadn't even thought of him in a while!

2 & 1/2 years ago I watched parts of a clinic done by Andy Marceaux (spelling?) in OH. I watched parts of 4 lessons with different students. Since the clinic was meant for students that were more advanced than I was at the time, parts of what I watched/saw were way beyond me (my eyes would glaze over almost as fast as when my hubby goes into detail on electronics). Other concepts I understood due to taking many years of dressage lessons and others were so basic that I was surprised I hadn't applied it to my driving! What a difference - taking home some of that made in my own driving - a week later after I arrived home and was able to apply it. Wish I could have met him in person - he enjoyed visiting with each of his clinic students and usually ended up laughing over something or other. He sounded like a fun clinician to work with...