The main reason we drive with blinkers is to prevent horses from reading our body language, reaction to movement of the whip. Horses are experts at reading body language, GUESSING what will happen next and moving to avoid something they GUESS will happen. Your doing things in sequence, gets horse KNOWING what happens next, so they HELP by not waiting for a signal to walk or do other things.
Their making choices, can have BAD results. You are slow getting into vehicle, horse waited the “alloted time” and walked off without you! Horse sees the whip move in your hand as you swat at a fly, takes off trotting or faster! He doesn’t want to wait for whip touch!! And this is only Fun Driving stuff, not actual competition things.
If you are having new issues, you should consider changing how the blinkers fit the horse, style of blinkers, before just dumping blinkers all together!
Our horses are all trained in open bridles, but when we start hitching them, they need blinkers to prevent them guessing what will be asked next. Horses have all gone open or blinkered during training sessions on the long lines, so blinkers are not a “sudden” thing. They have gotten familiar with going on voice, whip touches, while wearing blinkers and open bridles, commands are the same, they just can’t read the handler visually now.
For us blinkers are a SAFETY issue. Most folks are rather lax in FIRMLY enforcing obedience in behaviour to commands. For us, Whoa means STOP, STAND, DO NOT MOVE AN INCH!! Horse is ALWAYS corrected IMMEDIATELY for any movement. Our horses stop fast, stand well, when asked to Whoa, because we accept nothing less.
For other folks, Whoa can mean “slow down to stop, stand here, mostly without moving”, which is not nearly the same thing. For the horse with the other folks, he is often allowed to MAKE CHOICES of his own in the obedience, response to people area. With no blinkers, handler body language, past experiences, horse is going to respond as he pleases, WHEN he feels like it because he is not corrected for it or doesn’t understand the occassional correcting he does get!
So my suggestion, is to consider how blinkers fit the horse first. Maybe they could be opened wider to see ahead, athough still not see behind. Maybe need a wire inside to make the winker stays firm in holding the blinkers wide open. Blinkers should NOT be touching the eyeballs!! Next might be comfort, with the eye whiskers trimmed a little shorter because they are poking the blinkers. All the poking of whiskers may make horse blink a lot, so they are uncomfortable wearing the bridle. Maybe a different style blinker would make horse happier. There are Ds, Hatchet, the huge square blinkers, round, among other kinds of blinker styles available. We have mostly round blinkers because they fit our Breed best with their protruding brow bones. We also have some square, hatchet on older Zilco, and half-cup blinkers on special bridles. All have worked well for various horses or in special situations, so the horses go better for us.
Next is the setting of blinkers. Is the eyeball CENTERED in the middle of the blinker? Not high or low, because horse CAN see over them or catch flashes of things under the blinkers, might be enough to worry the horse. There is also the IMPORTANCE of using a full noseband that holds the CHEEKS of bridle firmly against the side of the skull. I see nosebands on cheek hangers, half noseband with no buckle under the jaw, neither which will keep the bridle cheeks ON THE SKULL, when you use the reins. Also no noseband on a driving bridle at all. Cheeks flex out, move around on the head with rein use, so again, horse can see behind the blinkers if the noseband is not holding cheeks in place on the skull.
Look at other parts of the bridle for horse comfort. Is the browband wide enough? I see a LOT of short browbands on wide headed horses. Our horses wear the normal Full-Size bridles, but need Over Sized browbands. Our small horses needed larger than average browbands to make them comfortable. Does your caveson/noseband stay in the correct location on his head? Should be a couple finger widths below the cheekbone, not just above the soft part of nose. Lots of nosebands don’t stay up where needed. Is the throatlatch comfortable, but still keeping bridle firmly in place so it can’t come off? Check for rusty or broken staples to poke horse, a knot in stitching that can be irritating horse.
Remove the excuses horse has for poor behaviour, so you can expect them to behave and correct them when they do not. Wearing blinkers is a learned behaviour with training. We can help horse accept it better by trying some different things to let them be more accepting.
I am among those who THOUGHT they knew best, wanted to be NICE so I drove my horse open bridled. We wrecked that day because she saw TOO MUCH and reacted badly to it. She never drove SAFELY again, even with blinkers. We tried to drive her again, but she spooked badly after a short distance at a walk, jumped to gallop for a runaway. I had a BIG bit on for “just in case”, pulled her back down and held her so we kept control. Didn’t ever hitch her again. Ruined her for future driving use by “thinking outside the box” and “kindness” where it wasn’t needed. She drove FINE in a blinker bridle, no issues for years, before I wrecked her. I don’t know any others who tried open bridle driving that also didn’t eventually have a wreck happen. They were experienced drivers, experienced horses, but one day the horse saw “something” that cause a bad reaction.
You can try what you want at home with your equine, but blinkers are most commonly used in carriage driving for safety, have been a good tool over hundreds of years. Some pulling uses of equines need them open bridled, but the majority of driven equines go best with blinkers. Those blinkers may need tweaking for fit, comfort, TIME for equine to get used to wearing them. Old-time uses of open bridles on driven horses were possible because of their situation or location. Modern driving animals must meet and face things the old-time drivers never thought of. Blinkers help by removing the visual impact a bit. Horses are not DEAF, blinkers don’t take that away, so they do not wear blinkers to prevent being scared of the vehicle hitched to them! Blinkers are an aid in driving by reducing the field of vision, which is why equines need to be obedient and accepting in ALL instances.
Do NOT put YOURSELF in the horse’s place. You don’t think and react like the horse will, to situations like blinker wearing. I look at blinker wearing as a training issue to gain acceptance with a well fitted, comfortable bridle.
