After my driving accident, I cannot afford another injury to my spine. I thought I was giving up horses, but am still a bit obsessed, and now I am wondering if it is possible to get a truly safe driving pony or horse. I know that horses are horses and “anything can happen”, but surely there are some that are 99% safe.
Something aged and Amish-broke. Or a retired commercial carriage horse. My old Percheron gelding was the latter and was as close to bombproof as I ever encountered in any horse - riding or driving.
eTA: if you have not done so already, get a vehicle that has brakes. Preferably an Easy Entry cart. They won’t totally prevent an accident but they sure increase your odds of surviving unscathed. While you don’t say what you were driving at the time, I’m betting it was a fancy cart? A lot of accidents happen with Meadowbrooks, for example. No brakes, and you have to be athletic to get out of one in a hurry.
You’ve answered your own question.
99% still leaves that 1%.
I tell people “bombproof” just means you have not yet encountered the right bomb.
Your best option would be to never drive alone, but always have someone experienced riding with you. Someone who could take the lines.
For me, this would severely limit driving.
Even with every conceivable precaution, wrecks happen.
@Wanderosa , I was taught brakes are not intended to function as a device to stop or even slow the carriage, but rather they are meant to keep it off the horse going down an incline.
@mimiwenk If you have gotten medical advice to avoid further injury, only you can decide if the dice should be rolled.
I had a very bombproof pony. We put a lot of miles on together, trotting around my neighborhood for years. Then we got hit by a car. It was certainly not his fault–he tried so hard to get us out of the way when we saw it coming, but we were on a steep uphill and he couldn’t get moving fast enough. It was a freak accident and just very unlucky.
My point is that you cannot eliminate all risk in doing anything with horses. But you also can’t eliminate all risk in life, whether horses are involved or not. It is such an individual decision to determine how much risk you are willing to take in your life, and how important a particular activity is to you. And I agree with everything 2DogsFarm said. Bombproof means a generally calm response to scary stuff, but you can always find something that will panic even the steadiest horse.
Rebecca
Other uses of brakes encouraged by top professionals:
- to keep the contact consistent in a downward transition (most especially the trot to halt)
- Half halts
- to make it just that much harder to go forward. Brakes are not going to stop a runaway, but the add’l slowing power may help stop something from starting. (I wouldn’t bet my life on them, but I sure appreciate their presence)
1 Like
I would caution against the addition/use of brakes with a 2-wheeled vehicle. That puts an awful lot of pressure on a horse’s back. Brakes are best used with 4-wheeled vehicles only.
Helmets are probably a given at this point, but have you also considered investing inna safety vest? I have both a hard bodied and air vest I use for riding young horses and those that aren’t mine. The hair vest has a pull cord that releases the pin to puncture the CO2 cartridge and inflates the rest. I’m not sure about finding a good ancor point in a vehicle for it, but the solid vests do also provide good protection and helps cover some of that 1% left over.
I don’t entirely trust the idea of “bombproof,” but I do put a lot of stock in how quickly the horse listens and turns to the human when in crisis.
Drive a donkey. The come in miniature, standard & mammoth size. My driving Jenny is bombproof as far as being safe.
My former driving mare did a spin and bolt, flinging me out of my carriage. I had on a helmet and an airvest. There are any number of places to hook the airvest too.
It felt like landing hard on an air mattress. Not fun but nothing injured. I highly recommend. (Mine is a Hit-Air).
The mare was sold as a riding horse and I read my current gelding much better than I did her. So I trust his responses.
