Developing Straightness *EDIT for Progress Report!*

[jyuukai]

Hey guys! As I mentioned in my Re-Introduction thread, I've been ground driving my mare lightly (from pasture to barn) since she was a young yearling and over the last summer and till now we moved up to ground driving her in a circle/down the road/all the other fun places more grown up ponies drive

I do have a question though. She is not the first horse I have ever 'started' but she is the first I have started for harness! I notice that while she will gladly take direction from me she has a very hard time staying straight in any way shape or form! If I am 'driving' her down the driveway or the road for instance I must constantly switch the hand my whip is in as she drifts left, and then right, and then left again and she absolutely loses all sense of direction unless I keep steady contact with her mouth.

I do not mind giving her direction in this way, really, as I understand she is young but I think it's time for her to start learning this skill on her own. I would like to be able to trust her enough to point her in a direction and she continues to go that way, leaving me free to work on other things with her! Do you guys have any exercises we can work on to help us out?

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Well I went out today (2/2/12) on my own to work with her. I typically don't go out without a friend because of some dogs in the area but I just had to try this out! Booooy was she HOT today

Spooking at everything and wanting to trot trot trot! Which was good! I made her keep up the energy at a walk and she was much easier to drive today, none of that wet noodleness, except for when we saw some scary BUSHES on the road lol

I had to take her off the pavement because of how she was acting, I was afraid that if a car went by she would act stupid, so we went into the field today. We did lots and lots of lines and circles mostly at a big forward trot and some at a good walk. She did very well and after about 10 minutes she gave me that nice stretch into the bit that she occasionally shows me

I wanted to keep going but it is 70F here again and she has full winter jammies at the moment, so she was working up quite a sweat! I gave her a half an hour of grazing in a big GREEN field as a reward.

THANK YOU GUYS!! For giving me all that good advice! I took parts of everything that every one of you said and kept them in mind for our workout today and it went SPLENDIDLY! I am so glad I asked on this forum!!

 

[JMS Miniatures]

Turn the opposite direction she wants to go. You can search for different exercise patterns to help get her straight but if she is wanting to go one direction all the time just turn the opposite, you may need to stay turning that way for a while but she will learn that it will just be easier to wait for you to ask her to turn.

 

[jyuukai]

Sorry if I wasn't clear. She isn't turning at all, she is drifting. She slowly drifts one way and then slowly the other. She continues moving forward but she can't stay on one track!

 

[JMS Miniatures]

Same thing. Another good exercise is follow the fence, if they start drifting off just pull them back on course, of course this helps alot if you have an arena with a fence barrier. Open pasture can still work but its a lot harder. Its very common for green horses to do this, just needs more time.

 

[jyuukai]

Understood

I do only do open pasture work or open road work (She is boarded on a property which is on a dead end road) so unfortunately I dont have any fences to follow yet! I will try the turning. She seems to drift equally to the right and to the left, she is fairly soft and has no real bracing or turning issues.

Would it be ok if when I turned her the opposite of her drift I had her work a few circles that direction? I figure I could kill two birds with one stone that way as she has a little of a drifting issue on circles too that would be easier to fix with reins.

What can I say, my pony is a drifter

 

[Marsha Cassada]

I would suggest this, which was helpful to me:

with halter and lead, stand straight in front and ask her to back. Tap the shoulder with the whip on the side she is drifting. Only do one step at a time and praise for every time she moves her back end straight. The shoulder is the "steering wheel". The body drifting is a symptom.

Once she realizes what it feels like in her body to be straight, she will be able to understand better what you want. It takes an amazingly short time to accomplish this.

One straight step back, praise, then work toward several straight steps back. Just go slow and let her think about what you are asking. Be in front and use the whip to cue the shoulder.

Do your harness ground work in lots of large circles, or if you are going down the road, go back and forth on the road zigzag. You'll be amazed at how quickly she will become straight.

 

[jyuukai]

I would suggest this, which was helpful to me:

with halter and lead, stand straight in front and ask her to back. Tap the shoulder with the whip on the side she is drifting. Only do one step at a time and praise for every time she moves her back end straight. The shoulder is the "steering wheel". The body drifting is a symptom.

Once she realizes what it feels like in her body to be straight, she will be able to understand better what you want. It takes an amazingly short time to accomplish this.

One straight step back, praise, then work toward several straight steps back. Just go slow and let her think about what you are asking. Be in front and use the whip to cue the shoulder.

Do your harness ground work in lots of large circles, or if you are going down the road, go back and forth on the road zigzag. You'll be amazed at how quickly she will become straight.

She backs incredibly straight, it's something we have worked a long time on, but I will go back and review those lessons and make sure she still understands (it has been a while since we did that!) Funny you should mention her shoulder being a steering wheel. Until very very recently (the last two weeks) we had alot of trouble getting her to yield her shoulders to any pressure. I will double my work on freeing up that shoulder and make it a real priority. Maybe understanding that lesson will help her. She has finally starting 'giving' me the shoulder and crossing properly with her front legs for pivots.

I like the zigzag idea, I will incorporate that into our road work

 

[Jennywashere]

Are you using an open bridle on her or have blinders. I notice you say she goes straight with steady contact and when she backs. If she has blinders she needs steady light contact other wise she is blind and wanders about. Maybe try an open bridle if you are not already.

 

[jyuukai]

Are you using an open bridle on her or have blinders. I notice you say she goes straight with steady contact and when she backs. If she has blinders she needs steady light contact other wise she is blind and wanders about. Maybe try an open bridle if you are not already.

While I do own a blindered bridle she becomes very nervous in one as we have not done alot of work with it. Any time we do work with a bit I use a simple open bridle. Good suggestion though, I'll have to watch out for her becoming crooked again when we transition to blinders (if I get her straight in the first place haha)

 

[brasstackminis]

I would wonder if your horse is going forward at a marching walk. If not, she will walk like she is drunk, no question! It is a green baby thing. I would not push her to walk too fast. You are looking for forward, not fast. But the horse needs to cover some ground with each step. If your horse is lollygagging around, it will not be straight! Just a thought. This goes the same for all the gaits, riding and driving. Just encourage her to move out a bit within the walk and see what happens. Experiment with energy within your gaits. There is a comfortable, forward-moving pace where she will end up straight but not too fast. Horses can "run away" at the walk and trot as well as the canter/gallop. "Run away" is basically when they are going more forward than they are capable of maintaining balance...they end up on the forehand and strung out. Just be careful with your encouragement...ask for more forward, then contain the energy gently into soft, half-halting hands and the horse will take her foreward energy and go up into your contact in the bridle instead of fast. The energy kind of ends up going into a circular motion within the horse instead of straight ahead. It is hard to explain, but if and when you feel it, you get it! It is a cool feeling under saddle for sure. All of the sudden your flat horse feels like a bouncing ball and there is something between your legs! It is super cool!

 

[jyuukai]

I would wonder if your horse is going forward at a marching walk. If not, she will walk like she is drunk, no question! It is a green baby thing. I would not push her to walk too fast. You are looking for forward, not fast. But the horse needs to cover some ground with each step. If your horse is lollygagging around, it will not be straight! Just a thought. This goes the same for all the gaits, riding and driving. Just encourage her to move out a bit within the walk and see what happens. Experiment with energy within your gaits. There is a comfortable, forward-moving pace where she will end up straight but not too fast. Horses can "run away" at the walk and trot as well as the canter/gallop. "Run away" is basically when they are going more forward than they are capable of maintaining balance...they end up on the forehand and strung out. Just be careful with your encouragement...ask for more forward, then contain the energy gently into soft, half-halting hands and the horse will take her foreward energy and go up into your contact in the bridle instead of fast. The energy kind of ends up going into a circular motion within the horse instead of straight ahead. It is hard to explain, but if and when you feel it, you get it! It is a cool feeling under saddle for sure. All of the sudden your flat horse feels like a bouncing ball and there is something between your legs! It is super cool!

Hmm I wonder if that might be part of the problem

She doesn't do this very much at a trot, and she has a TON of energy in her trot! I will experiment with asking her for more in her walk as well. I know she will need a better walk if I ever show her in CDEs as I want to anyways

 

[TMR]

I think part of the problem is it sounds like you are dropping contact and she is drifting looking for it. A driving horse only has the bit and whip for connection to you. If you do not have a light feel on the bit then she is searching for it to understand what you want. You can get away with no bit contact on a riding horse as he still has your legs and bottom to feel what you want, however a driving horse does not have this. Yes, some horses will naturally go straight, but many will not, especially when they are first learning. When you have them more forward it gives them more to think about and they will not drift as much, but they will still seek contact to know where to go. I have a coming 4 yr old now that I am working and we are constantly working him between the reins especially at the walk to keep him straight (it doesn't help that he has a giraffe neck and its like driving a noodle especially at the walk). Yours will learn to go straight its just a matter of working her so that she learns what you want. You should always have just a light feel of their mouth to help them understand and reassurance, especially if you are planning into going into CDE's. The horses must learn a change is pressure signals something different is expected or coming up. That is why you hear so much about half halts and other rein signal, because its our language with them. I hope all that made sense, sometimes its hard for me to type what I mean.

 

[jyuukai]

I think part of the problem is it sounds like you are dropping contact and she is drifting looking for it. A driving horse only has the bit and whip for connection to you. If you do not have a light feel on the bit then she is searching for it to understand what you want. You can get away with no bit contact on a riding horse as he still has your legs and bottom to feel what you want, however a driving horse does not have this. Yes, some horses will naturally go straight, but many will not, especially when they are first learning. When you have them more forward it gives them more to think about and they will not drift as much, but they will still seek contact to know where to go. I have a coming 4 yr old now that I am working and we are constantly working him between the reins especially at the walk to keep him straight (it doesn't help that he has a giraffe neck and its like driving a noodle especially at the walk). Yours will learn to go straight its just a matter of working her so that she learns what you want. You should always have just a light feel of their mouth to help them understand and reassurance, especially if you are planning into going into CDE's. The horses must learn a change is pressure signals something different is expected or coming up. That is why you hear so much about half halts and other rein signal, because its our language with them. I hope all that made sense, sometimes its hard for me to type what I mean.

I do understand that she only has my hands and whip for direction, and I do try to keep a light feel on her mouth at all times at the very least. My main issue is that I'm spending so much time correcting her that I feel like my hands are too busy to do other things, like trying to pick up a shoulder or properly prepare her for turning or any of the other one kajillion things it feels like I need to do with them

. It's all I can do just to try and keep her straight haha.

I keep going back to her being more forward. It's killing me that I can't get out there tonight to test that, somehow I think that she might be slowing down to the point where maybe our contact isn't steady? You guys are giving me alot to think about for her training. Keep it coming, I love learning new things!

 

[TMR]

Your feeling is right, you are having to constantly correct (talk) with her. It is like having a conversation, you put a little more pressure right, so she says "oh okay right" but then she goes to far right so you put pressure left and she says "okay left" and it goes on and on and on until you figure out the right amount of pressure on the outside rein and inside rein that keeps her straight....and even then there is still a little more pressure to the inside for flexion, but not enough to turn her. It is a constant game of give and take and releasing a enough right at the optimal time so that they know they did right. Then adding a touch of whip to the inside to have them bend a little and increase length of stride...all at the same time.

And who said driving was easy, let alone training a new one who has no idea what you want. But, that is the challenge of driving, especially the CDE dressage test and why some of us love it so much. The dressage part of a CDE is so much more than going around a ring doing a pattern. It trying to achieve perfect rhythm, impulsion, submission and all look like it was easy. Talk about the unachievable task, but I love it all same as do many others.

Just take it slow with her and the two of you will figure it out. With her being new, just worry about impulsion(forwardness) and straightness now. The proper turning and such will come later. I try to get my new ones out in the open on long straight drives, that way you don't have to worry about constantly turning in a ring. I am lucky to have an airport right across the street, so we just loop the runway. Everytime you take a turn you tend to loose impulsion.

 

[jyuukai]

Oh wow alot to absorb there! My only 'dressage' training was a former eventer mare with one eye who I used to try and figure things out on for fun haha. I would pick a movement I had seen on televised dressage shows and try to reproduce the movement on her. My driving training was Saddlebreds in fine harness

So this is a real learning experience for me. I have to take all the random bits and pieces that I've learned from those two places and try to put it all together

When you made the comment about her going too far left and too far right that is exactly correct! It seems like she starts drifting, I correct her and she over-corrects (or maybe my cue is too strong) and we end up going the other way and so on and so forth for most of the drive. I have resorted to using the whip as a sort of shaft at times, holding it to her left when she drifts left so that she feels a 'barrier' and straightens up, but inevitably she will start drifting right and then I have to switch the whip and stronger contact on the left and so on and so forth

It never ends! lol

Alright so, just to make sure, when you use your whip as a bending cue you want to use it on the inside right? So as to give them a point to bend around, if I'm visualizing it correctly? I mean obviously I dont want them to c-curve around in reality but I want to touch them in the rib area and for her to respond by moving her ribs away, basically, and bending? (sorry if this is weird, I learn better through cause-and-effect thinking)

I'm wishing my hip was in good enough shape for me to take some basic ridden dressage lessons!

 

[TMR]

That's basically the idea on the whip. They move away from the whip for example on the ribs on the inside bends the body, on the hip on the outside pushes the hip in...just as you use your legs when you are riding. On my prelim horse, we are working on better bending and flexion so we are using steady outside rein, half halts on the inside rein and light tickle with the inside whip. The steady outside rein keeps him from dropping to the inside, the half halts get the front end bend and flexing and the inside whip helps enforce the bend and keeps pushing to the outside. It all goes together. Just take baby steps with your girl. What you described is pretty normal for a horse in beginning training. Your background being saddlebreds in fine harness might be why this is feeling all new. I drove minis in the show ring for the past 19 years and when I started into the CDE's 4 yrs ago it was a whole new world. Luckily, I had in previous years when I was younger worked for a hunter/jumper barn and all the horses were trained in dressage so most of it made sense, but it takes time getting the timing and learning the whip use without interfering with the reins. When you get frustrated just remember we have all been there and take a deep breath and know that you are not alone.

 

[jyuukai]

Thanks for the support

I think part of it for me is going to be learning a new set of cues. I knew in my head that the whip was going to replace my legs. And I knew in my head if I wanted my riding horse to bend I'd ask him to bend around my leg. But for some reason those two things would have never connected for me if you hadn't said it!

I think once I experiment with the cues and start getting them right that things will come together for me. I'm definitely going to start with impulsion and making sure she is being driven up into the bridle first and see how things goes. I can't go to see her until the 11th sadly, becaue of some schedule problems

But when I go out next I'll give that a try and let you know how it goes! She picks up on things quickly so I have high hopes that she will be at least a little straighter with some ideas that I have learned here!

 

[Katiean]

Every horse I have ever started driving has "wondered" or "drifted". As they start to learn they straiten up. They just have to learn what you want. Actually when I do finally put the harness on the horse, they have been in the bitting rig in the round pen for a few weeks and you might try putting your drive lines through the lower rings of the bitting rig to ground drive or I have also had success holding my drive lines further apart. It gives them some stability. It has worked for me. But then, I am an old school harness race horse person.

 

[shelterwood]

Just a thought....when you are "correcting" her drifting, are you throwing away the outside rein too much? It's really easy to do, forget about that outside contact that is what guides the arc of your turn and provides stability and guidance for the horse as to how far you want them to go in any direction. It also is what prevents a shoulder from really dropping into the arc as well. Love the conversation here, this is great. I think we have probably all struggled with this with our youngsters at one time or another. Perhaps setting up a cones course to ground drive through would give you some visual aids? I find that when I ground drive somewhat aimlessly around my property I have a harder time maintaining straightness than when I have a predetermined course. Keeps things interesting too for the horse, I think. Walks down the road have been helpful too, as you have the shoulder of the road as a plumb line.

 

[jyuukai]

Every horse I have ever started driving has "wondered" or "drifted". As they start to learn they straiten up. They just have to learn what you want. Actually when I do finally put the harness on the horse, they have been in the bitting rig in the round pen for a few weeks and you might try putting your drive lines through the lower rings of the bitting rig to ground drive or I have also had success holding my drive lines further apart. It gives them some stability. It has worked for me. But then, I am an old school harness race horse person.

Harness racer! My wife worked for a big harness racing barn up north. I believe she told me the trainer she worked under was a multiple HOFer and so were many of his horses. I think she likes the idea of CDE because she can still train the pony to go fast

When I ground drive her now it's with an open bridle and a surcingle, and I have been putting the reins through the bottom ring. When we first started she would try and do some stargazing and I started putting the reins lower. I changed the bit, the stargazing stopped, but I kept the reins low because they fall along the side of her body and I feel like that helps ME keep her in line some. Holding the reins wide I haven't thought about. I need to get some longer lines to make that do-able I think (I'm using regular harness driving lines from a cheaper harness, and they are pretty short for ground driving) but I will try it!

I do want to get her set up in her sliding side reins in the round pen when we get it set up. I longe her in them occasionaly now but like many horses she likes to fall to the inside when she's away from 'home' and pull to the outside when she's near 'home' so I dont feel like it benefits her as much as it could as we work more on 'NO STAY IN THE CIRCLE' than on anything else LOL

Just a thought....when you are "correcting" her drifting, are you throwing away the outside rein too much? It's really easy to do, forget about that outside contact that is what guides the arc of your turn and provides stability and guidance for the horse as to how far you want them to go in any direction. It also is what prevents a shoulder from really dropping into the arc as well. Love the conversation here, this is great. I think we have probably all struggled with this with our youngsters at one time or another. Perhaps setting up a cones course to ground drive through would give you some visual aids? I find that when I ground drive somewhat aimlessly around my property I have a harder time maintaining straightness than when I have a predetermined course. Keeps things interesting too for the horse, I think. Walks down the road have been helpful too, as you have the shoulder of the road as a plumb line.

That is a good thought, I may very well be also dropping the outside rein a bit. I believe I have caught myself doing that a time or do, I will be more diligent about keeping contact on the outside rein. Yet another principle I know in my mind and don't always put into practice

I would love to try the cones idea! I've gotta see where I can get some good ones for cheap. We sadly didn't get much back for taxes this year and with all the other things I need (bell boots, round pen, clippers (we burned ours out) running shoes, books, etc) some of the little things have fallen to the side. I do drive her on the road but alot of times we drive on the grass. I'll drive on the pavement next time to see about using that line as a 'barrier'

I agree, the conversation here is great! I'm learning alot and getting alot of amazing tips