Driving with Others

[MajorClementine]

Okay now I know why everyone likes to get together to drive with others. It is so much fun! My father has a foxtrotter that is his riding/driving horse. He's got a beautiful doctor's buggy that "Red" pulls. So dad was up visiting last week and we decided to take Red and Clementine out together. Red pulling the doctor's buggy with my parents and Clementine pulling her EE cart with my son and myself. So. Much. Fun.

Clementine led out. I was a little worried that Red, being a foxtrotter, would hate being behind us because of his naturally quick gait. However, Clementine got into her trot and we were golden. Dad told me that Red stayed in a nice easy foxtrot the whole time. We didn't hold him up at all. Down some of the wide side roads we would drive side by side (plenty of room between us) and Clementine did NOT want Red passing her. If dad let Red speed up his gait Clementine put her trot into overdrive.

Both horses were very well behaved. Listening to commands, relaxing into the drive, and steady. We did about 3 miles. I was keeping a close eye on Clementine since I haven't had her out much this summer but she didn't even break much of a sweat. It helped, I think, that we waited until early evening to start when it was cooling off a bit.

I think Mom took pics of them standing hitched together (with dad and I on the lines of course) so I'll post them if I can get her to text them to me. Happy Driving!

 

[Marsha Cassada]

Very cool! What a fun day !

 

[MajorClementine]

So here is my son and I with Clementine (the wonder horse) and Dad with RedMan.

 

[BSharpRanch]

Oh how wonderful! We did a drive with friends this spring that was a lot of fun.

 

[paintponylvr]

Beautiful!!

And yes, driving with friends and family is awesome. Just that much nicer to share the good times with.

 

[MajorClementine]

Clementine and I went on a 3.7 mile drive today. Our average speed was 7-8 MPH. It was just us today. She started out pretty "hot to trot" but was well behaved. Her only issue when she's fresh is being leary of everything. She doesn't spook she just keeps her head bent far to the right so she can see all the scary things. We're working on it. When she settles in (about mile 2.5) she keeps her head nice and straight and I'm able to really let up on the lines and just barley keep contact with the bit. It's a beautiful thing.

I know there have been questions on conditioning minis and how far they can drive at a time. This is really only our 3rd drivethis year (we've been remodeling our house) and she did great going almost 4 miles. There are slight hills on our drive but nothing steep. She stayed in a trot unless I asked her for a walk. Whoa at all STOP signs. She did sweat a little but as you can see in the second picture she wasn't dripping with sweat by any means.

All in all it was a great drive. Oh! And I totally forgot to use my Endomondo app to track our distance so I had to use planaroute.com to track us after the fact. However, if you guys are looking for a great free app to track your speed, distance, time, etc, Endomondo has been great for me. I use it for walking and stuff too. I hope this isn't seen as a sales ad... just my review on a free app that's fun to have when driving. It even shows you a little map of where you drove when you are done.