05.27.08
Maiden drive for new carriage horse
Hooray, hooray!! We have TWO driving horses! I’ll call this official now because Glendale was so successful on his first “real” outing with the big guys, on a Granite State Carriage Association organized drive, Auburn NH Carriage Drive Pace, May 18, 2008
Trailering Glen and his big brother Gilford to Auburn, NH on Sunday, May 18, we met up with other drivers with their horses and carts, about 8-9 of them. Our route for the day was called a “pace,” which is a timed course meant to be driven at a “pleasure” rate of speed, and just-for-fun placings were awarded to the six horses closest to the median time.
Hubby drove Glen put to the training cart, and I rode Gilford behind them, to give Glen confidence and also to work on Gil’s own forwardness and consistency of gait. I found Gilford very responsive and willing to move right along, thanks indeed to daughter Emmie’s schooling of him during April.
Just starting out, we encounter a bridge which Glendale is pretty leery of crossing in the lead, so Hubby lets him stop and I ride Gilford ahead of him to give him confidence. Our training goal is to build the youngster’s confidence and let him figure out for himself that he’s safe in the driver’s hands.
Though this young driving horse has been ridden over a few wooden bridges on past outings, his balkiness here is normal because he’s immature and inexperienced and, like many horses, he feels less secure leading the way than when following. It would be foolish of us to try to force him to cross the bridge because he could easily veer off to either side and cause the cart to drop a wheel off the edge of a dropoff, or he might stumble off himself.
Nothing could be worse than to create a dangerous situation; the goal of his training is to keep him (and ourselves!) safe. Seeing his big brother cross the scary bridge first is all it takes to get Glendale across. After numerous positive experiences crossing bridges and dealing with other frightening situations without anything bad happening to him, the youngster will gain enough confidence to cross bridges safely, without worry.
Meeting another carriage horse on the trail. As a safety precaution, Hubby exits the cart and holds Glendale by the bridle, called “heading him up”, because we don’t know how the youngster might react to another horse going by. ALWAYS better safe than sorry!
Glendale headed up while another carriage horse passes.
Glendale was awesome and Hubby was being careful to take all safety precautions. Being in an easy-exit training cartlet him easily jump out and hold Glen’s head when encountering bicyclists, walkers, and other horse carts, of which there were many. He did this the first couple of times because we couldn’t predict how Glendale would behave in these new situations.
Meeting two bicyclists who stop on either side of the trail to let us pass. Because the cyclists stopped for us, we keep on driving Glen through. Note how Glen is trying to learn how to steer straight while trotting on this woods trail!
Once he shied sideways from being startled by a bicyclist riding in the woods near the trail… and once he started to climb a bank off the side of the trail because of something he heard, but he stopped for Hubby and backed down again without incident.
Glen watches walkers pass; he was always curious to check them out!
Glendale keeps walking while passing a family of walkers (the first group of people we met caused him to stop.) Glen’s steering is improving already, as Hubby is able to keep him to the right edge of the trail. Then Hubby stops and stands him to let two bicyclists pass coming towards us, but this time does not head him up.
The pace was a short course (about 4 1/2 miles), all for fun, and not a race; it was intended to be done at a moderate “pleasure” speed. The marked trail was level woods roads– sand, dirt and gravel– with one wooden bridge over a stream. There was a fun “obstacle” maze to weave through, and a short series of cones to navigate between.
Glen finishes a fun “obstacle” course of poles, where he is taken through a series of “gates” marked by red on right and white on left. Steering and turning is always good practice.
Going back across the bridge, Glen still wanted Gilford to go first, so we did and then Glen followed right behind.
All in all, the day was perfect– lovely temps, not buggy, no mishaps, and we enjoyed lunching with other drivers at the end while horses back at the trailers enjoyed their hay and their well-earned rest. Can’t think of a nicer way to spend time– and folks there were amazed that our not-yet-three-year-old driving horse could go so nicely.
Returning successfully to the starting line...
AND, as a bonus, Glen finished in sixth place when the median times were figured up, meaning that our rate of pace was pretty average! I’d say we were trotting about half of the time and walking the rest.
