driving question

[mightymiracles]

Ok so I am sure this has been asked before but I am curious how do you guys start your guys driving?

I know most start with lunging and go from there but do you ground drive starting in a halter? Blinders? full harness or just surcingle? Do you start off with a bit and if so what kind? What age do you start to ground drive and add cart? Do you go from ground driving to putting them in fake shafts or go straight to the cart? Sorry somany Q's and I know everyone has there differences but I am finding that with the mini's are being trained diff. then a large horse.

 

[Field-of-Dreams]

We start by round-penning them in a bitting rig. Once they carry themselves well and stop fussing with the bit we'll attach reins and ground drive in the pen. We then add the blind bridle and continue ground driving. We'll start to use a harness now. A second person will hold the traces, slowly increasing pressure. We'll jiggle the traces, sliding them back and forth, gently bumping their sides and upper legs with them. Once they are comfy with this, another person will pull the cart along as we ground drive. In front, behind, alongside the horse. They hear the noise and get used to it. We'll them put the shafts next to them and bump them along their sides. Then we'll put the horse in the shafts and bump both sides. We'll put the shafts in the tugs and let them feel the weight, bouncing the shafts up and down. We'll attach the cart and drive around, doing turns so that the shafts touch and restrict the movement. One person leads at ALL TIMES while the other drives. Then, we get in and drive away.

We go slow- any time they are uncomfortable we go back a step until they relax. This takes MONTHS. We don't advance to the next step until they are totally relaxed. My gelding didn't like driving as a three year old. We gave him some time off and started back up two years later (we moved 1300 miles and missed most of 2004 driving) and he LIKED it. Two years after that he was Res Grand in WCP at Nationals. He loves trail driving and goes pretty much anywhere.

Now, my 3YO filly took to it like she read the book. Round penned perfect, listened, everything. I attached reins and she turned and stopped- immediately! If I hadn't know better I would have sworn someone had been playing with her, she was that good. Three lessons later I was driving her around the yard, in the cart! She is SMART. In Oct she won a Res Stakes Champ in Country- in her SECOND CPD class!

Lucy

 

[maplegum]

I'm at the ground driving stage with Bailey and we are doing great.

I'm simply using surcingle and halter (not sure if I will go bitless yet). He is listening to all commands perfectly. I never did the 'round yard' thing with him as part of his ground driving, although he does lunge perfectly.

I take him down the road and expose him to as many things as possible. I try not to stick to ground driving just in our yard.

From what I understand there are so many methods and you will just have to find what works best for you and your horse.

Good luck.

 

[Jill]

I get them used to a bit first, and will round pen lunge them in a surcingle, open bridle, and bit. When I start ground driving, I have them in an open bridle and don't really feel like it's good to ground drive using a halter and no bit. Most of my horses were pulling the cart for some time before being put into a bridle with blinders, and I feel this is the best way to go (open bridle for a good amount of time). Mine are very comfortable with the idea of what is behind them (the cart, me, etc.) before blinders are brought into the equation.

 

[Mr.T]

you will want to ground drive them. and get them used to going and turning with someone behind them steering them with reins. before you do this you will want to make sure that the horse knows how to turn, so put the bit in it's mouth and get it used to that and responding to the bit. If your horse is confused have someone lead your horse and when you pull left have the horse go left, and when you pull right have the horse go right, ect. after you will want to put the harness on and ground drive them, when they are ready add a cart but don't add weight until your horse gets used to the cart.

 

[mandi]

I start from the basics, lunging, lunging with a surcingle, then with a bit in their mouth, from there I go to sidereins to get them used to having pressure applied to the bit. After this I will ground drive them from the side at first and them progress to going behind them. I will do serpentines, figure eights, tight circles and go over poles. I will also ground drive them on the road to get used to traffic. Once they are comfortable with this I will SLOWLY add the harness parts. Some horses get really touchy with the crupper, breastcollar, and breeching. Add one piece at a time starting with the crupper. Once they have the backpack and crupper on I lunge them in it and will move to ground driving. I do each piece slowly each day adding a new piece if they were ok with it. I have seen horses be fine putting the harness on until they move and feel it and start bucking and rearing like crazy because it wasnt done one piece at a time. Some horses can handle it all at once and others just cant. My mini is one that wont be able to handle it all at once. My draft cross could care less if I put it all on the first time.

After the whole harness is on I attach the traces to the breeching and lunge which gets them used to the traces hitting their sides. I will then go from lunging to ground driving with the full harness. After this I put them in PVC poles and a piece of wood that is attached and seperates the poles. The wood has eye bolts attached to it so that you can attache the traces to it. Their is about a foot and a half to 2 feet of excess pole at the end before the wood is attached. This way it drags on the ground which helps the horse get used to noise from behind and having poles attached to their sides. Also, what is nice is that they CANNOT back up with this set up. Some horses use backing as a diversion to going forward and this way they dont have the option they try to take a step back, cant and have to move forward. Also, the first few turns need to be WIDE. Horses in shafts have to turn differently than they do naturally and can git poked with a shaft or get stuck not knowing how to turn. I get them to the point that they are trotting in the poles and doing figure eights, tight circles, serpentines, and are able to halt and not move for at least a minute and a half. Once they can do this I will then get them to drag a SMALL tire behind them while attached to the poles. After they are doing this reliably on the road I will add a cart.

There is a lot more detail than this, but I'm just giving you a brief overview if you want to know in more detail send me a PM

 

[MiLo Minis]

I am really sorry to say but I personally read this as a disaster waiting to happen. IF you don't know how to start a horse driving, Minis are started exactly the same way as full size horses, then you need to get yourself some knowledgeable help. You can NOT possibly learn how to train a horse to drive from reading answers on a forum. You might get incredibly lucky, as I have read of a few on here, and have a very docile little horse that just goes along with everything and it may work out okay BUT you could also end up getting yourself or your horse badly injured. IF you know how to start a full size horse then you know how to start a Mini - there is NO difference other than the size of the equipment. Please, for both your sake and your horse's, get yourself some good assistance.

 

[Rebecca]

I'm not yet at the hitching stage but here's what I've done- my mare didn't even know how to lunge so of course we had to start with that. Then lunging with the bitting rig w/out the bridle then I introduced the bit & bridle separately. I would put it on her for short periods of time while she was in the stall or out in the paddock supervised. Also, and I still do this because I want the bit to be a good thing to her, I put a bit of molasses on it so she excepts it. Then I lunged her with bit. bridle, and bitting rig, then started ground driving. GROUND DRIVE EVERYWHERE! In the ring, in a field, paddock, on a quiet road, in a parade, bring them to a different location and ground drive there, expose them to whatever you can (if you haven't already) at this stage before going further. I'm starting to introduce the full harness pieces at a time, and ground drive with fake 'shafts'. First I use wrapping paper rolls, as they bend easily and break if stepped on, then I use PVC pipes, first dragging them behind her and walking beside her before ground driving with them. The key is to take it slow, I started teaching this mare to lunge almost a year ago before thinking about ground driving her. No rush, and things will go faster than expected, however if you try to rush through it you're likely to miss a step and regret it later. This mare is 14 years young, and personally I would rather have a bomb proof driving horse even if it takes months to teach her.

Rebecca

 

[rabbitsfizz]

I agree with Milo 100%. I wince when I see people asking these questions, basically.

If there is no one in your area who can help you at all, even if it is a bit further on down the line, then I would not really be starting at all.

If there is someone who can help you then get over there, watch, learn, maybe do a bit, and go back and learn some more.

Picking out brains on here is fine, and we will always try to help, but it is far from ideal.

You can see from the vast difference in answers just how muddling it can be.

For instance:

I never use a bitting rig, and never shall.

I never use Blinders and never shall.

I bit last of all, after the horse has learned everything else.

I never long rein...I have never been able to see the point, and nowadays I can't do it anyway, BUT that does not mean I just slap the horse in the cart and get lucky!!

I don't lunge, ever, but I do round pen.

I do occasionally use side reins, but not that often.

I never, ever, use a check rein of any sort and never, ever shall do so.

Parts of this coincide with parts of what others say, parts do not and parts are different to everyone.

One of the most important things in driving is getting the fit of the harness and the balance of the cart correct and, whilst again we will always try to help, that is something that only experience and hands on advice can truly do correctly.

And it is of utmost the importance to your horses welfare.

 

[Sanny]

but I am finding that with the mini's are being trained diff. then a large horse

Having worked with and taken lessons from both "mini trainers" and "big horse trainers" I am not sure I totally agree with this -- not the good trainers anyway. The only big difference I see is that some people that train their minis take a lot of short cuts and risks that they wouldn't with big horses.

If you have a horse you want to start driving and you really want to do most of the training yourself I would suggest finding a trainer (mini or full-size) willing to work with you and the horse once or twice a week and in-between your lessons with the trainer you can work at home on the stuff you are doing in the lessons. Depending on how much you pay for this it might not be much cheaper than just sending your horse off to a trainer but it allows you and the horse to safely learn together and in the long-run may be more rewarding to both of you. I personally like to work with my own horses but I do take lessons with them and the more I learn the more I realize I don't know. I am always looking to learn and have lots of books and videoes and attend clinics whenever I can and use the internet to learn but nothing beats working with a trainer and having them adjust your equipment and work with the horse and show you how to properly work with the horse step by step.

 

[mightymiracles]

Thank you guys for your response, I didnt mean to alarm anyone, as I realize how the post looks, my main issue that I was seeing was like sanny said, mini people appear (from different post etc...) to take short cuts and diff approaches to things they can get away with so I was just curious from several of you guys who do a lot of showing and training do things. I have trained light horses as well as draft horses to drive and never had an issue but when I read that some people are taking and have a mini in a cart after only a couple weeks of ground driving it gets my attention. I would NEVER take a large horse only 2weeks of ground driving and stick them in a cart! So you see I was asking the basics to see how or why some of you would do things differently as I am looking at starting mine the way I know which is a season of ground driving and MAYBE putting fake shafts on her and then let her sit till next summer. Thank you for all your responses though it gave me some perspective on how some of the mini's are trained.

 

[joylee123]

[SIZE=12pt]I notice everyone says something about longeing. But I am hoping folks don't mean just going in circles on a longeline

or for that matter in a round pen.[/SIZE]

Before you start anything, the horse should be completely voice command trained on the longeline. Walk, trot, a que for an extended trot, WHOA and stand

Until they can do that consistantly don't consider going forward with any other training. I do upward and downward transitions on the longeline by voice command. My horses will back on the longeline and reverse on que. Then start your ground driving

Just my 2 cents

Joy