Schnell! Irgendwer ist falsch auf die Internet!
I haunt some groups on Facebook, especially the bitless and driving groups.
The bitless driving group had someone post asking about blinkers and their use.
For the interested this is what I wrote:
"Reasons for blinders:
Reduce distraction in the horse's peripheral vision. If something is moving in and out of the edges of your vision you find it distracting, doubly so with the horse who is designed to react to movement with "run now questions later." Overly simplified I know.
"Prevent anticipation of the whip aids. Some horses will try to anticipate movements of the whip, moreso if you are diving multiples and have one that is eager and another who is less inspired.
"Protection, horses have very large eyes. Way back when you had crowded streets with many horse drawn vehicles it prevented someone else's whip end or road debris from getting in your horse's eyes. If you ever get into driving multiples like Tandem, Randem Unicorn, Four, and more the blinkers prevent the lines if your leaders from rubbing the eyes of your wheelers and swing horses.
"Those are the reasons for blinkers in a nutshell."
Another person commented whom I've seen in other bitless groups and I generally scroll past, but she specifically called out not using blinkers with multiple hitches.
My initial response in my head was "O REEEEEEALLY!"
I restrained myself and hopefully didn't sound too skeptical in my response, which follows:
Now I will tell you why it would be difficult to rig up the lines so that they do not go past the wheeler's eyes, especially in a Tandem hitch:
Tandem is when you have one horse in front of another. The two horses work in line with each other, the wheeler is closest to the vehicle between the shafts and the leader is out front kept in position by the traces and lines.
Traditionally the leader's lines run through roger rings that are attached to the browband of the wheeler. The rings sit just below the wheeler horse's ears and you can imagine that running from the leader to the driver's hands the lines could rub the wheeler's eyes. From there the lines will go through a special set of terrets that keep the wheele and leader's lines separate. Where else might the lines run? Well the wheeler's lines go through the rings on the neck straps and the saddle terrets on the horse's back, the leader's go above the wheeler's. I guess you could technically run the leader's lines through the wheeler's neck strap, but guess what could happen with your leader's lines that low? If you have a busy-mouthed wheeler s/he might just chew on them. During a turn the lines might be pushed by the wheeler's nose. If the wheeler tosses its head and gets its neck over one of the leader's lines you could be in real trouble.
Driving a Tandem is screwy enough without having your wheeler's head and neck interfering with the leader's lines!
Now you MIGHT get away with running your lines low on a unicorn or four-in-hand/four-up since you would have the lines to the inside of your two wheelers, but you could still have issues with your wheelers messing with them or getting hung up on a number of things.
I'm sure the commenter meant for me to be impressed driving a single horse in a halter, but to me it just makes the person look ignorant. Don't tell people you can do something when all you have done is heard someone say it could be possible and not thought about the mechanics and contingencies!
I actually see this a lot in the bitless groups, they want so much to buck the tradition they fail to see that a lot of the tradition is about safety as well as function.
Anyway, someone was wrong on the internet and I had to say something.
The bitless driving group had someone post asking about blinkers and their use.
For the interested this is what I wrote:
"Reasons for blinders:
Reduce distraction in the horse's peripheral vision. If something is moving in and out of the edges of your vision you find it distracting, doubly so with the horse who is designed to react to movement with "run now questions later." Overly simplified I know.
"Prevent anticipation of the whip aids. Some horses will try to anticipate movements of the whip, moreso if you are diving multiples and have one that is eager and another who is less inspired.
"Protection, horses have very large eyes. Way back when you had crowded streets with many horse drawn vehicles it prevented someone else's whip end or road debris from getting in your horse's eyes. If you ever get into driving multiples like Tandem, Randem Unicorn, Four, and more the blinkers prevent the lines if your leaders from rubbing the eyes of your wheelers and swing horses.
"Those are the reasons for blinkers in a nutshell."
Another person commented whom I've seen in other bitless groups and I generally scroll past, but she specifically called out not using blinkers with multiple hitches.
My initial response in my head was "O REEEEEEALLY!"
I restrained myself and hopefully didn't sound too skeptical in my response, which follows:
Now I will tell you why it would be difficult to rig up the lines so that they do not go past the wheeler's eyes, especially in a Tandem hitch:
Tandem is when you have one horse in front of another. The two horses work in line with each other, the wheeler is closest to the vehicle between the shafts and the leader is out front kept in position by the traces and lines.
Traditionally the leader's lines run through roger rings that are attached to the browband of the wheeler. The rings sit just below the wheeler horse's ears and you can imagine that running from the leader to the driver's hands the lines could rub the wheeler's eyes. From there the lines will go through a special set of terrets that keep the wheele and leader's lines separate. Where else might the lines run? Well the wheeler's lines go through the rings on the neck straps and the saddle terrets on the horse's back, the leader's go above the wheeler's. I guess you could technically run the leader's lines through the wheeler's neck strap, but guess what could happen with your leader's lines that low? If you have a busy-mouthed wheeler s/he might just chew on them. During a turn the lines might be pushed by the wheeler's nose. If the wheeler tosses its head and gets its neck over one of the leader's lines you could be in real trouble.
Driving a Tandem is screwy enough without having your wheeler's head and neck interfering with the leader's lines!
Now you MIGHT get away with running your lines low on a unicorn or four-in-hand/four-up since you would have the lines to the inside of your two wheelers, but you could still have issues with your wheelers messing with them or getting hung up on a number of things.
I'm sure the commenter meant for me to be impressed driving a single horse in a halter, but to me it just makes the person look ignorant. Don't tell people you can do something when all you have done is heard someone say it could be possible and not thought about the mechanics and contingencies!
I actually see this a lot in the bitless groups, they want so much to buck the tradition they fail to see that a lot of the tradition is about safety as well as function.
Anyway, someone was wrong on the internet and I had to say something.