Mini Pairs Driving Training 2

Thanks to her commenting on Peaches’ blog, we are able to share Lori R.’s questions and stories as she begins to train one of her miniature horses to pairs driving. Lori is in process of obtaining harness(es) and a mini cart, has one mini which already drives, and a second one which she will be training. She also drives a really cute donkey! Follow Lori’s reports here as they happen!!

See Lori’s other posts on Mini Pairs Driving Training… and welcome to our newest Ghost Rider!! (Guest Writer) Lori!
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Oooops, Forgot the Plow! Lori shows us her REALLY cute driving donkey! (See below…)

On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 11:51 AM, connie moses wrote:

lori

REF: Driving horses pairs training, step-by-step
The pairs harness has traces just like a single harness, which attach to “trees” which may be singletrees or doubletrees, I’m not sure, but same idea as on a singles cart except there are 2 of them. The only other attachment is the pole straps, those short ones in front, which hook to the front of the pole. Ours buckle into what is called a “crab.” Those are also called brake straps, the reason being that that is what slows or stops the carriage when the horses stop, which keeps it from running up  and hitting them in the rear. Our 4-wheel carriage has a foot brake which you’ll find on any sizeable carriage but I don’t know about on mini-carriages. The pairs harness for road use will probably have breeching, to give better stopping power. Often in shows or in fine harness the breeching is not even used.

There are other styles of pair harnesses, for draft teams or with neck collars for example. This style is the only one we are familiar with, which uses a breast plate across their chests. I’m sure you can find plenty of info online or in books or maybe videos about pair driving, that’s mostly how we learned. Also if you visit a shop that sells the harness, they will tell you all about what you need! Or other mini drivers of course.

Once our ground training was solid and each of our guys had driven singly several times, we started out pairing them simply by leading them beside each other, then with a 3rd helper we could have one ground driver behind and a person at each horse’s head to lead them side by side. We did that a few times before trying them fastened to the pole, just so they’d be used to walking at the same speed and to be sure they didn’t object to staying that close together.  THey had no problems with our fake pole, being already used to shafts, but walking straight was a little challenging at first because suddenly there was only one “shaft” instead of one on each side to keep them straight. We had 3 people when first trying the pole too. 

A travois-type drag could work, although there’s more risk of it hitting their heels or them backing up and stepping on it. You can see how our practice pole was made… the traces hooked into the crosspiece (singletree) and I used baling twine to tie the rear of the pole up in the center by tying onto the sides of their breeching. It sort of pulled the  breeching sideways but not heavy enough to be a problem. Because our harness had trace-keepers on the sides, the traces were held up high and the pole was practically self-supporting.

Best of fun to you! Your season is just the opposite of New Hampshire, where we now are about to have such cold weather that we won’t do much more with horses until next May or June, and even in May it is often too muddy to do anything!! However, there are some hardy folks who do ski joring with their horses in winter. Not us (YET!), but we do love to watch it!

connie
PS. A lot of baling twine around our farm is used as “fake” electric fence wire. It will stop our horses for a long time until it rots or accidentally gets broken! Of course we don’t use it for primary fencing, but handy and cheap for strip grazing and other interior fencelines.

Nov. 25, Lori’s Reply:

Hey again Connie,
REALLLLLLLLYYY???????  I would be ~~~honored~~~ to be on your blog.  Me on a blog…. who’d a thunk it!  Guess I’d better get busy with the mini team. 

Today I hitched up my **new** cart and harness with Lil Black to see what tweaking we needed to do.  Good gracious, I was afraid it would be too big since it was advertised as a large mini size… it’s almost too small in some places. The belly band (an easy fix) and the brow band are pretty tight.

I must have a large size mini with really short legs.  It also doesn’t have breeching since it is a fine leather show ring harness.  I’m not used to driving without breeching so I was concerned there but LB did just fine, and I plan to add a pair soon as I can. 

I had zero leg room (I’m 5′8″) but it has the adjustable seat with one hole left for moving it back so that will help.  Also, Connie would you know about this?… the swingletree is tightly fastened by two straps to the metal bar behind it.  I always thought the tree was meant to swing freely and it does on my other mini cart.  I think I had read what the purpose of this was on another driving group, but can’t remember now what it was.    I drove it today without removing the straps and really didn’t notice anything different so I’m a bit stumped there. 

We don’t have winter here except for maybe a few icy days in January.  Then we finally get to put on sweaters, cute scarves, knee high boots and run around without ever breaking a sweat.  The El Nino effect has really changed our weather patterns too.  It’s just downright scary how hot and dry it keeps getting each summer and now we’re getting really good rains.  It’s just like Spring again.  Fields and plants are blooming and everyone is running around cutting and baling hay during these last warm months. 

I’m sending you a pic [SEE ABOVE] that I’ve been sharing with friends… just for grins.  It’s pretty redneck (don’t worry, I clean up purdy!) and I’ve given it the title:  “Oooops, Forgot the Plow”.  Wish I did have a plow that I could stand him in front of… then I could use the caption: “The Little Donkey that Could.”  What a Hoot!

Twine tip:  it’s also good for tying snaffle bits to halters when you don’t have a headstall.  Just be sure to tie several knots so it won’t slip out!

Hope you and yours have a very:
Happy Thanksgiving!
Lori

Nov. 26, Connie’s Reply:
Hey Lori
That’s gotta be the cutest donkey I’ve ever seen– I’d forgotten they can be colored! AND you can see where you are going! With our boys, I am looking at butt most of the time…

The swingle/singletree on our Meadowbrook cart was fixed in place by permanent straps too, with some looseness to them so that it had a little bit of play. I think the play would make the pulling feel more comfortable because there is a little bit of give. Perhaps your other cart was missing its straps? I think all the ones I’ve seen had them.

Our carriage has an evener bar, which is a second full-width pivoting bar which both of the singletrees fasten into. We were advised by pros to strap down the evener because it gave so much play that it allowed one horse to pull too far ahead of the other one, and therefore carry too much of the load. (or conversely, one horse could be lazier and let the other one do more of the pulling!)

Go minis go!! I bet they are really cute too! SEND MORE PIX!!!
connie