Dopple die Pferde, dopple die Spaß!
It's been almost a month now since I had my lesson with Julie M. from down in Marana. She came up to teach a half dozen lessons at Marcia's place (Secretary for the ADCS, our state carriage driving organization). Marcia offered her pair of mares up for my lesson and I jumped at the opportunity. I have driven draft style teams, but am not familiar with the set up for a pair of horses with breastcollar harnesses.
We discussed hitching and rein adjustments (find neutral, if one goes forward a hole 5he other has to go back). The sidebacker is called a front to back instead and buckles under the traces. Belly backers aren't as much of a thing with the pleasure and performance driving sect.
Julie drove and demonstrated a bit first. You essentially drive the inside horse through the turns, basically inside whip into your outside hand (surprise!). I took over and we work3d some basic turns and walk/trot transitions. Hands closer together helps keep the pair tighter against the pole. I did have a tendency to hold too much with the inside rein when they were slow to come through a turn.
We played with a small cones course, I only ran over three cones!
Marcia took some pictures.
It was a lot different dealing with an athletic, forward pair compared to a team of drafts. Not that I haven't deiven jiggy drafts, but the athletic potential is a bit higher with a warmblood and Thoroughbred/Percheron cross.
The dark one is the warmblood, Diva, and the bay is the Perch cross, Diamond.
Diamond would occasionally pin her ears and grump at Diva, not the best thing for a pair to do. Julie mentioned they weren't the best matched pair, but did pretty well. Diva needed more encouragement to keep her forward. Julie was a bit more nagging with the whip and didn't time it with the horse's leg movements. Julie didn't comment about how I used the whip, but she did say I was a good student! It helps when you have the theory in your head and you just need reminders to use your body parts right!
I look forward to some more opportunities to play with Marcia's pair and start building my own!
Completely unrelated Thursday I took Bud out with John and his gelding Red. I forgot Bud's bridle so I jury rigged his halter with bailing twine.
I guess it's a good thing we've been playing with bitless! It's made him lighter and more responsive and I was able to trust his responses, even when he went under his first noisy overpass, which even Red had a slight issue with.
After dropping off Bud we saw a firetruck drive past with lights on. As we approached the fire station we saw smoke. John wondered if it was a training exercise, but then we saw a garbage truck on the other side of the station that was still smoking. Apparently someone had thrown away something they shouldn't have and it combusted. The truck was close enough it went to the station and dumped its load. Pretty wild to see.
Today I hauled Brenda's three horses down to the Catalina/Tucson area. I put four rides on her four year-old the last couple weeks and we finally clicked well Tuesday and had a nice, productive ride. Part of the trick was not just letting him blow off his baby steam and insisting he go to work right away.
Ollie is the piebald Drum Horse closest to the camera.
Her Clyde Swazy went right in. Ollie wasn't sure of the structural soundness of the trailer it took about 10 minutes to convince him to load up all the way after shimmeying back and forth several times. Her Quarter Horse Mario also wasn't sure about the trailer and was a heavy lug on the lead line. I finally looped the lead over his nose and touched him lightly with the whip and he went right in. It makes me appreciate my horses who don't tend to lug around on their halters. The drive was uneventful. Brenda is interested in sending Ollie to me to refine his riding and start building his driving skills.
Dollie goes home next week. Nancy came out and drove her Thursday and we discussed her cart. It is in need of reinforcements before she drives it out and around her neighborhood. I didn't realize just how light and cheap it was until Nancy sat in it (she's probably double me). Her husband welds and plans on doing some reinforcements on it and rebuilding the shafts. She'll save up for a good cart eventually, but hopefully her husband can make this one safe.
We discussed hitching and rein adjustments (find neutral, if one goes forward a hole 5he other has to go back). The sidebacker is called a front to back instead and buckles under the traces. Belly backers aren't as much of a thing with the pleasure and performance driving sect.
Julie drove and demonstrated a bit first. You essentially drive the inside horse through the turns, basically inside whip into your outside hand (surprise!). I took over and we work3d some basic turns and walk/trot transitions. Hands closer together helps keep the pair tighter against the pole. I did have a tendency to hold too much with the inside rein when they were slow to come through a turn.
We played with a small cones course, I only ran over three cones!
Marcia took some pictures.
It was a lot different dealing with an athletic, forward pair compared to a team of drafts. Not that I haven't deiven jiggy drafts, but the athletic potential is a bit higher with a warmblood and Thoroughbred/Percheron cross.
The dark one is the warmblood, Diva, and the bay is the Perch cross, Diamond.
Diamond would occasionally pin her ears and grump at Diva, not the best thing for a pair to do. Julie mentioned they weren't the best matched pair, but did pretty well. Diva needed more encouragement to keep her forward. Julie was a bit more nagging with the whip and didn't time it with the horse's leg movements. Julie didn't comment about how I used the whip, but she did say I was a good student! It helps when you have the theory in your head and you just need reminders to use your body parts right!
I look forward to some more opportunities to play with Marcia's pair and start building my own!
Completely unrelated Thursday I took Bud out with John and his gelding Red. I forgot Bud's bridle so I jury rigged his halter with bailing twine.
I guess it's a good thing we've been playing with bitless! It's made him lighter and more responsive and I was able to trust his responses, even when he went under his first noisy overpass, which even Red had a slight issue with.
After dropping off Bud we saw a firetruck drive past with lights on. As we approached the fire station we saw smoke. John wondered if it was a training exercise, but then we saw a garbage truck on the other side of the station that was still smoking. Apparently someone had thrown away something they shouldn't have and it combusted. The truck was close enough it went to the station and dumped its load. Pretty wild to see.
Today I hauled Brenda's three horses down to the Catalina/Tucson area. I put four rides on her four year-old the last couple weeks and we finally clicked well Tuesday and had a nice, productive ride. Part of the trick was not just letting him blow off his baby steam and insisting he go to work right away.
Ollie is the piebald Drum Horse closest to the camera.
Her Clyde Swazy went right in. Ollie wasn't sure of the structural soundness of the trailer it took about 10 minutes to convince him to load up all the way after shimmeying back and forth several times. Her Quarter Horse Mario also wasn't sure about the trailer and was a heavy lug on the lead line. I finally looped the lead over his nose and touched him lightly with the whip and he went right in. It makes me appreciate my horses who don't tend to lug around on their halters. The drive was uneventful. Brenda is interested in sending Ollie to me to refine his riding and start building his driving skills.
Dollie goes home next week. Nancy came out and drove her Thursday and we discussed her cart. It is in need of reinforcements before she drives it out and around her neighborhood. I didn't realize just how light and cheap it was until Nancy sat in it (she's probably double me). Her husband welds and plans on doing some reinforcements on it and rebuilding the shafts. She'll save up for a good cart eventually, but hopefully her husband can make this one safe.