02.21.08
baby perched on a perch
This shot from Tina Y speaks for itself! Cleverly composed!
Tina’s baby son Evan at 2 weeks old, on 2000 lb. Dolly who is 28. (It’s hard to see the person hiding behind the horse, holding the baby– you can just make out one hand behind the baby’s back.)
Tina says: Evan is a trooper, and as soon as he can walk, Jill will be his horse. She’s very intelligent and respectful, and very aware of what’s going on around her, so I think she’ll be ok with having a tiny person in charge. She’s also a great trail riding horse, as she prefers to just follow Dolly and rarely spooks, so hopefully Evan will be able to join us on trail rides next summer! [REALLY!???-- he's 4 months old now.] I’m excited to start teaching him how to handle the horses, I think that’ll make some more cute pictures! [Can't wait!]
Enjoy these pix of both Tina’s horses and her story about them…
I’ve attached some pictures of our girls. They are both Percherons, Jill and Dolly. We bought them in fall of 2005 for a song, and fell in love with drafts. I’ve ridden western and dressage my whole life, my husband was a novice until the girls came along. Now I hate to admit it, but he’s better than I am with them! I’m getting excited about driving and considering purchasing another horse to use for combined driving, however there is very little in the way of instruction in my area, so we’ll see!
Jill is about 1800 pounds and is 21 years old this year and Dolly about 2000 pounds and is 28. We use them for riding, driving, and pulling things around (logs, round bales, rocks, tires, stuck vehicles… basically anything we can hitch to!)
They are on pasture 24/7 (we can’t even get them to go in the shelter!) and are barefoot and we’re in the process of switching to a AANHCP certified farrier.
Jill (on the left) is in an open bridle. We have russet lines with 8′ stub lines rather than the standard 5′. The russet means that you aren’t getting black harness dye on your clothes and the long stub lines we learned from Steve Bowers in Colorado, our mentor and friend who passed away last summer. (www.bowersfarm.com)
With long stub lines you don’t have to worry about the buckle getting hung up in the hame ring, which could have devastating results, as you aren’t able to use the line if it’s stuck in the ring. We don’t drive Jill regularly in the open bridle, as she seems to prefer the blinders, especially with the wagon. She does very well with the sled, though. Dolly doesn’t ever go in the open bridle as she’s rather scatterbrained and we just don’t feel that she’d do very well. We do a lot of ground work (ala Clinton Anderson) and do a lot of work with a plain wooden sled, as dragging something is much more beneficial to them than a wheeled vehicle, as wheels take the work out of it!
The stub line is the cross rein, some also call it a check rein. Driving a team isn’t particularly challenging, but there are some more things to think about while training and driving. More than I thought there was when we first got our girls.
Dolly, one of Tina’s percherons, out on long lines.
We spent a week learning from Steve Bowers last spring in Colorado, and highly recommend all of his books and videos, especially his two books. He talks a lot about getting the proper alignment for a team and how to hitch them properly and safely. Some of it might not apply depending on what you’re driving and what kind of harness you’re using, but much of it would be very relevant.
I’ve rarely driven a single horse, and then only with a sled, and only used a light harness once, so you and I are on the opposite ends of the spectrum. I found your blog from a youtube video of a young horse in training.
[peaches comments:]
NICE NICE NICE!!! Don’t you just love Percherons? In the snow pix they so remind me of Abby, our former Perch./Morgan who was our first driving horse. She was a sweetheart, though not always kind to our other mare because they both were alpha mares and our Arab definitely lost those arguments.
I love Clinton Anderson– one of the prizes I won for my movie in Easy Boot’s video contest was from a Clinton Anderson DVD series but shows Pete Ramey doing trims! AND we have seen him in person twice at area Equine Affaires.
I know very little about combined driving but have friends who have done it and our friend Kim who has Abby now hopes to get into it this year (with a different horse I think). When I start learning more, you can be sure I’ll blog about it!
Tina Y said,
February 21, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Nice job Connie! For the record…I’m hoping to go trail riding with Evan NEXT summer (2009). He’ll be 1.5 by then, and hopefully able to handle a short ride with his ol’ mom! He already is a regular on our wagon and forecart…if you put his infant carseat parallel with the wagon, it rocks him to sleep very nicely! The horse in the longlines is Dolly, she’s so much more photogenic than Jill! She often gets mistaken for a Friesian.