10.04.08

Pairs conditioning on Acadia Carriage Roads

Posted in Horses for the horse crazy at 5:51 pm by petArtist Cmoses

Here are training-oriented videos of practicing in Acadia with our driving pair. Of course, everything we do with them is practice and training, but these vids show examples of some unusual things horses have to get used to, and some things you try to practice repeatedly, to improve their (and YOUR) teamwork.

CANTERING PRACTICE

Day 5, TONS of FUN doing some extended cantering, gentle uphill grade on fairly soft dirt footing. With each canter session they seem to get a little smoother.
YOUTUBE COMMENT: it would be nicer if the bay stoped playing and kept his face on the road
MY RESPONSE: Good eye! it certainly WOULD be nicer, and we hope he’ll outgrow this annoying little habit of play-nipping at his older brother (who is 5)…. since the bay is only 3 he’s got time to grow up! We did shorten his outside (right) rein some and that helped quite a bit. Honestly, we’re not overly concerned about it at this point, & don’t wish to nag him with corrections and potentially sour him to the whole idea of driving. : )

This was our training/conditioning schedule while in Acadia:
WEEKS BEFORE: driving as a pair since mid-July (see previous blog posts on pairs training)
DAY BEFORE: trailered to Acadia, 6 hrs. standing in trailer eating hay. Being trailered can tire some horses, especially ones that are nervous about trailering; our guys probably fall asleep.
DAY 1: drove about 4 miles, mostly level, walk/trot
DAY 2: rainy, so we rode them about 2-3 miles, mostly walking
DAY 3: drove about 9 miles, walk/trot
DAY 4: DAY OFF FOR REST
DAY 5: drove 15 miles, more walk than trot, plus some cantering, rest stops
DAY 6: drove 6 miles, with nearly half of it extended uphill trotting, a little canter; none of the Carriage Road hills are very steep, but 2 miles of this one was about the steepest uphill encountered in Acadia (to Day Mountain summit). Of course, 3 miles uphill means 3 miles was also downhill!
RETURN DAY: trailered home 6 hours (resting/eating hay); then they ran around in their pasture, quite happy to be back home in grass again!

CONDITIONING THEORY– how much work is stressful?
When paired up, and assuming they are sharing the load more or less evenly, we figure Glen and Gilford each do about half the amount of work they would be doing if driven singly over the same distance. At present, Glen the younger guy lets his big brother take more of the load when they’re walking (he appears a little bored walking and more prone to pestering his brother!) But then Glen gets more animated and more “forward” when they trot, so in trotting HE is often more “in draft” (pulling more) than Gilford is.

ROAD-WORKING EQUIPMENT EXPOSURE

An unusual challenge– meeting road rollers, graders and dump trucks on the Carriage Roads doing washout repair work (the aftermath of torrential rains brought by Hurricane Hannah.) The boys were unruffled.
Video: pair encountering grader and dump truck on carriage road

In our minds the current imbalance in “draft” of our green pair tends to even out their shared work, which is roughly half walking and half trotting. I would also say that Gilford, who is steadier when just walking along, possibly works a little harder than Glen does for the whole session because PULLING at a walk is actually a bit more difficult than pulling at a trot, where momentum helps the trotting horse(s) out. This is OK too, since Gilford is 2 years older and better able to work a little harder. As Glen matures, as he gets more SINGLES training pulling by himself (which we will keep doing), and as they become more experienced together as a pair, we should see them (especially Glen) become more consistent, and thus more equally “in draft,” at all times.

EXTENDED DOWNHILL TROTTING, TEMPO PRACTICE

Practicing some downhill trotting– the carriage brake is being used to slow the carriage, and also the horses are holding it back themselves somewhat, through the harness breeching behind their butts. By watching their traces (the leather straps along their sides which attach them to the front of the cart) you can tell by the slack that they are not “in draft,” ie. they are not pulling any weight. We pass an anxious dog and get a view of Eagle Lake and Cadillac Mountain to the northeast.

As to how difficult is their driving job?– Our Eagle carriage is lightweight compared to most 4-wheelers of comparable size, plus it rolls very easily. It is actually lightweight compared to our oak Meadowbrook 2-wheel cart. We removed the rear seat from the Eagle while in Acadia to make it as light as possible. In addition, we observe the horses’ energy levels and their breathing while we travel, and we can tell when they are getting tired or winded. We do not push them hard, keeping in mind that Glendale is only three.

PASSING HORSEBACK RIDERS
Passing other horses (video), other carts and horses, draft teams and wagons, bicyclists, hikers, hikers with dogs… all such things are necessary parts of their continued training, as encountered in Acadia.

During this week of driving in Acadia, the boys got stronger each day and were both energetic when we started on our drives. We fed them extra grain rations and plenty of hay because they were working more frequently. We gradually increased their mileage each day, and we gave them one full day off for rest. We used their hoof boots on their front feet the whole time, because we knew from experience that the Carriage Roads are extremely abrasive. On the last 2 days, I moved Glen’s boots to his hind feet, just because the hinds were getting worn down pretty badly.

HALT TO TROT TRANSITIONS, TO IMPROVE RESPONSES

Practicing transitions on level section of road, going from “halt” to “trot.” This gets into fine tuning of their responsiveness. They are great with voice commands, though they do need more practice on standing quietly! It helps that they have heard spoken commands ever since they were foals being ponied alongside their momma mare.

STALL TIME

They did nothing else in their off time in Acadia except stand in their stalls. Looks like they’re napping here!

Their day off we brought them out a short time for hand-grazing and to stretch their legs. They both were lying down ovenights for sleeping, which indicates they were quite relaxed in the barn. (You can tell they lie down by the shavings stuck in their manes and tails every morning.)

STANDING “PRACTICE”

Obviously they are not so good at standing quietly after their pretty long uphill trot! Antsy, in fact. I’m not sure why they both kick at themselves when they first stop– my guess is, being sweaty and breathing pretty hard at this moment, their harness girths are feeling itchy to them and they are trying to scratch; there probably are some gnats around their heads too. Then they go to rubbing their heads on each other trying to scratch their faces. What a pain! Once Gilford actually rubbed Glen’s bridle completely off! I was right there to re-bridle him, it looked like his throat latch had come unbuckled…

High standing water beside the Carriage Road at Long Pond. You can see this water is at same level as the pond. The Carriage Road seen at lower left goes off to the left and was underwater, about a foot below the pond surface, where it passed the pond.

There’s no video here, because we chose NOT to undertake a water hazard! At this lower end of Long Pond, the Carriage Road itself was a foot underwater on our first day’s driveout, for about 150 feet distance. There was visibly flowing water in two places, runoff from the pond which was moving towards the nearby ocean. I got out on foot to take a look at it.

Had we attempted to drive them through this water, there would have been no safe options for retreat. The road underwater was not much wider than our carriage so we could not have turned around; pullout to our left would have run the horses into coping stones or a ditch; pullout to the right would have taken them into coping stones or into the deeper water of the pond.

The water over the Carriage Road was behind me as I took this picture of Hubby waiting for me to see how deep it was! (Don’t ask me why I didn’t take a pix of the water over the road– duh!)

Given the fact that I wasn’t wearing waders and did not feel like wading through ahead of them to check it out, and also because there was a very real risk of underwater gullies or soft spots which we would not have been able to see while crossing, we decided that this was NOT the place to introduce the pair to water crossing. It would have been like asking for a negative experience to attempt it, and potentially very dangerous, so we turned around and went back the way we had come.

NOT WADING THROUGH WATER

Here IS a video of them being driven across the same road 2 days later, after the FOOT-DEEP water had receded. We approached it from the opposite direction this day, so the pond (obviously) is on their left. Much nicer conditions to get them pretty close to water without setting them up to balk at getting their feet wet! As you horse folks well know, horses can get real goofy about walking through water, even just simple puddles. And yes, they SHOULD be able to drive through water, but in training WATER we will plan it in advance, work with them each INDIVIDUALLY first, and set them up to SUCCEED easily and NOT to become nervous or frightened!