Safety First!

[RhineStone]

Let's see if we can learn from other's mistakes:

I was "talking" with friends over email about some driving horse faux pas, and they told me about a couple in their area that participates in a local parade. They told me that they watched them put a pair of minis to a four-wheeled wagon with the bridles hanging on the hames. My friends told them how dangerous that was, and they just laughed. Needless to say, they try to avoid them at parades now.

My mother was at a trail drive once, where there was as issue with someone else's mini. The grandma got out of the vehicle to fix whatever the problem was and left the two grandchildren in the cart. The horse took off with the grandchildren screaming in the cart and grandma on foot. Other drivers caught the horse eventually, but I think the kids were launched out of their "Easy Exit" cart first.

I was at a State 4-H show, where a family found out that I was experienced in driving and asked me to check their harness. They had the saddle on top of the withers, like a riding saddle. She had already been in one class and the judge told her that she needed to find someone to help her with her harness. After we fixed her harness the best we could, then she won a Top Ten and the family was thrilled!

Another year at the same State show, I was heading my sister's horse (she didn't really need it, but I wanted to be in there b/c no other kids had headers).

I saw one horse that was acting up at the other end of the line up, so I wandered down there. The horse on the end decided to rear up and the horse next to it was ready to jump around as a result. I grabbed the one out of the air, but couldn't reach the other. Finally, some other kid jumped out of the stands to grab the first horse. (Where were you 2 minutes ago?) I found out later that the horse that reared had qualified for State in Showmanship and had been broke to drive the week before.

Anyone else have good stories they can share that we can learn from?

 

[Champ]

My favorite one is when someone says they are going to train there horse how to drive....the problem is they've never driven a horse before, so I ask them how can you train a horse to do something when you don't even know how to do yourself.....needless to say one time I saw this person drive she got out of the cart, didn't hold onto the horse and it bolted....it wasn't pretty.....

 

[candycar]

Well - I guess you can add me to the list on know-nothings that have taught their horse to drive.

Hubby and I did take a couple of classes at the KY horse park, and read books, and learned from the LB forum. Jelly Bean and I are still very green but we get along just fine. I figured we would learn together and since it was just for our fun and enjoyment having a trainer wasn't that big a deal. I would dearly love to have a trainer but can't find one that'll come to me.

I have to give a big THANK YOU to Leia for coming and helping us this Oct with our training.

That helped more than anything else we've done.

 

[RhineStone]

Well - I guess you can add me to the list on know-nothings that have taught their horse to drive.

Hubby and I did take a couple of classes at the KY horse park, and read books, and learned from the LB forum. Jelly Bean and I are still very green but we get along just fine. I figured we would learn together and since it was just for our fun and enjoyment having a trainer wasn't that big a deal. I would dearly love to have a trainer but can't find one that'll come to me.I have to give a big THANK YOU to Leia for coming and helping us this Oct with our training.

That helped more than anything else we've done.

I think that the difference is that it sounds like you worked on educating yourself before attempting it. We, too, went to clinics and read books, but had VERY few driving experiences before we started our training our first driving horse (lots of riding, but I don't think I even got to drive a "finished" horse before we started ours). He was an older Half-Arab that I trusted with my life. (I would ride him with my eyes closed, and actually, I rode him after I blindfolded him, just to see how he would handle it. He lifted his feet higher, but went everywhere I asked. Fearless teenager...

I'm much more mortal now!)

Anyone else have any good stories?

 

[Champ]

Absolutely, the difference is that Candycar you educated yourself where as the people that I've met did not, they didn't even know you need to use a whip to make the horse go forward, they thought you did it like the old westerns...slap them with the reins

 

[MiLo Minis]

My biggest mistake with training driving horses happened a number of years ago. I had heard that I needed to shaft train the horse before ever hitching him to a cart. I had seen and heard of a number of different ways to do this and figured that the most shaft-like would be a travois. Now I looked it over on paper and decided that if the horse decided to back it would be disastrous so my solution was to put my "travois" (a spare set of shafts from an easy entry) on wheels. I got a set of those heavy duty caster wheels for moving heavy equipment and thought they would be perfect. I had them welded to the set of shafts. This not only made the problem of a horse backing up go away but it added some weight to the shafts to keep them grounded - sort of. All went well with several horses who dealt with these "shafts" quite nicely and I was thinking I was pretty smart.

The first horse to decide NOT to deal with them well and turn them into a weapon made me realize that shaft training is best done IN THE SHAFTS ON A CART.

Something I have seen happen, but not personally experienced as I had already decided that it was a bad idea, was a horse that turned a tire into a weapon. I have talked to a number of people that feel starting a horse working with pulling weight by using a tire is a good idea. Sounds good. NOT! The horse I saw got frightened when he first felt the weight of it and popped ahead a bit which caused the tire to jump after him which caused him to jump ahead again and so on and on the third leap he turned it into a full out bolt with the trainer on the long lines and the tire careening madly after him all inside a large round pen. He took out 3 of the fence posts, nearly broke the trainer's legs, and injured himself before coming to a stop only because the tire get jammed against a post. He had used this method with several horses prior to this and with good success.

There are so many things we trainers use when working with horses that can be very useful and are a great idea but some of the methods used can work really well many times because the horse's deal with them well but can be totally dangerous when the horse doesn't deal with it. My first line of defence is to think long and carefully of the pros and cons and possible outcomes with everything I do.

I have been told that if a horse can't deal with certain methods then he just shouldn't be driving but I always feel that if the method doesn't actually closely resemble what I am going to be asking the horse to do in the long run then he shouldn't really have to deal with it and won't necessarily be not a good driving horse if he can't handle that method.

Champ: I shudder when I see people slapping horses on the butt with the reins because I know that down the road one day that horse is going to let them know he resents it and they will pay. Aren't movies great!

Candycar: You did your homework and that no doubt helped you tremendously but I am also of the opinion that you got lucky and your horse was one of many that are easy to work with and didn't give you any trouble. It is when novices run into a horse that either comes with or develops issues because of green handlers that the novice ends up in trouble and that is where good trainers come in.

 

[jegray21]

I have not had any bad driving experience. I was lucky in that I got to spend a lot of time at a Friesian breeding farm where they did CDE and Dressage riding. My education was structured and prevented me from tragedy... now my learning curve with ridden horses BIG long list of no no's

No one told me ahead of time that minis were so good at getting out of fencing...nothing to do with driving but something I learned from missing minis out of stalls and not in the right pastures...very seriouse fencing every where now!

 

[My2Minis]

I haven't had any bad driving experiences (yet) but have done stupid things at lessons trying to put a harness on and driving. I can see how people mess up. There is a big learning curve, and without anyone telling people, they will slap with the reins on the horse's back. I did it the first time I drove in spite of being told not to. I had seen so many movies, it was like my hands just did it! Learning to hold the whip and use it along with the reins took practice. When you just start out, like anything, you will make mistakes. Never a master has fallen from heaven, as my father used to say.

 

[RhineStone]

We just got back from judging a sleigh rally this weekend. One of the classes was Youth Reinsmanship. There was a girl with very good hands, but didn't use her whip which she carried, and smacked the mini on the butt. She automatically went to the bottom of my placings (there were five in the class, but one broke a trace before she completed the class). That is a HUGE no-no in my book. I complemented her on her hands and asked her if she rode horses, which she did. That is why her hands were in such a nice position, at a 45 degree angle and out in front of her, not reaching for the reins or "smacking" herself in the belly. However, when I explain to people why they should use the whip instead of the reins, I ask them what the reins are attached to. The answer is the mouth through the bit. What happens when you "bump" the mouth? The horse turns or stops. So slapping the horse with the reins is asking the horse to stop and go at the same time. How confusing, especially to a well-trained horse! I explained to her briefly how the whip replaces your legs when riding, and briefly showed her how to use the whip on either side of the horse. (All the kids got comments from me.)

The trace issue above was "an accident waiting to happen". The harness was actually a very well made harness, but it was a Fine Harness, too light for pulling a sleigh with two people. The trace actually broke on the off side of the horse, and I saw the piece of leather hit the snow. I immediately told her to stop and the adult with her got out. When I saw that the trace was broke, I had her get out, too. There was no fixing the trace. We had to take the pony out of the sleigh and she had to be excused from the class. It was too bad, as she was my pick for best reinsman up until that point, other than the fact that I wasn't thrilled with her harness. They had the pony's "work harness" in the trailer, so they had a "back up" which was great because she came back to win Small Pony Working Pleasure.

That particular sleigh must have had the straps that go around the singletree. When the trace broke, the singletree did not pull forward on the other side, which is what would happen if those straps are not there. If that happens, it might smack the horse in the butt and/or the other trace would come off, especially with a hook end singletree. There were plenty of sleighs there this weekend that did not have those straps around the singletree. Check your vehicles and make sure those straps are there. They shouldn't impede the movement of the singletree, but are there to keep an accident from getting worse. Even binder twine can work in a pinch. I have also heard of using dog collars on smaller vehicles.

Myrna