Projects and Progress

[lantairvlea]

Today marked yet another milestone for our HaflingerxBelgian filly Tru-D. This summer I acquired some more harness bits so I could advance her driving training without having to buy a full one before she has finished growing. She'll be three in April so she has close to a year to grow height wise and then another two to three to fully fill out.

Comments

[lantairvlea]

They are. Tru-D had minimal handling before we got her at 10 months, no farrier care, not even halter broke and very, very suspicious of people. Now she hams up the attention when students and their families are here and while I do get the occasional side-eye still she is really about where I'd hope her to be at two and a half.

No match, her breeder checks in on occasion and mentions that he still has her half brother, but he's more blond and doesn't have as nice of a rump (he got his dam's hip, which was long, but almost vertical) so she'll probably be single when showing, though I see occasionally hitching her with one of our more experienced horses and having her capable of going in a team.

She is about 15.1 right now and probably has another inch or so to go (sire was 15 hh Haflinger, dam around 16.3hh Belgian). I need to measure again, but I suspect she's 1100-1200lbs if not more.

There's definitely some pride and deep satisfaction in being able to say you did everything. With our Friesian/Perch cross filly I did all the work on from birth forward, just had some help hitching her to the cart the first few times and that's a time when the more hands the better and easier! I wonder where we'd be now had we not lost her to heart failure at four and a half. Very proud of where she was and what we had accomplished to that point.

So far as the "issues" with starting them driving first I think it really depends on who is doing it and how! Zetahra was very soft and light before we lost her, not that she didn't occasionally have distracted moments where she lost her suppleness as any young horse does! Tru-D is getting there on the long lines, but is definitely light as a feather in-hand with a lead. I haven't had the time to work her much more than once most weeks so her progress is all the more impressive.

While the horse doesn't have to bend well to move the cart around, true bend through the curves makes the movement more efficient and powerful! I have a client's Haflinger that I restarted in harness and he's at the point where you're working off of finger squeezes and the occasional touch of the whip to remind him to lift his shoulders through the turn or a touch at the hip to keep him in proper alignment.

There's no reason a driving horse shouldn't be as supple and easy to bend as a riding horse and honestly, a bendy, flexible horse is a whole lot more fun to run cones with! Yes they are required to "sidepass" through the tight turn because they have to pivot on a point behind the hip, especially with a two-wheeled cart, though one might consider it similar to a working pirouette too, which requires suppleness in order to be done well. If you have really narrow shafts that don't allow for much movement within them I could see some issue with bending occuring, but in a properly fitting cart or carriage it shouldn't be a problem.

The canter "issue" also depends on who is doing the training. Traditionally people didn't want their horses cantering in harness. Amish-broke horses will generally be greatly discouraged from ever cantering in harness and the same goes for most "roadsters" or "park" harness horses (i.e the fine harness horses, most often Hackneys, Saddlebreds, Dutch Harness Horses, and Morgans), and harness racers because they are penalized if they break to canter.