A draft horse in 6 horse hitch gets tangled in his lines and goes down
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEVQWN3Q32Y&feature=player_embedded
Scary! My gosh, what a GOOD BOY. That horse went down, and just stayed quiet. A horse that big could do some real damage if he flailed his legs… or otherwise sent the hitch into a panic. Looks like it was handled very well.
Well, someone was sitting on his head!
WOW, as a none driving horse person what exactally happen? At least there were plenty of people to assist and what a good boy/girl the downed horse was along with the the other 5.
I just love watching those draft 6 horse hitches, but the Percherons are my favorite.
So glad how it turned out well.
I have to say I was impressed with how well everyone handled it.
Although I was a bit tense watching it, until all ended well.
Announcer was good too, keeping audience quiet and calm.
Question from a driver wannabe…what actually happened?!? At 3:45 where the camera picks up the problem, the woman in the sparkly top (what would her title be?) is already on the ground, and the right front horse has his haunches swung out and it looks as if he is cutting off the horse who eventually falls. Does a 6-hitch driving harness allow him to move in that way, or was there an equipment malfunction?
At any rate…these teams are gorgeous!
Watched and it looks like somehow the left leader got his line caught on the right leaders collar housing. That puts a great pull on not only his bridle but the other leader’s bridle as well because of how they are coupled. This could have been much worse but thanks to sensible horses (all of them!) and good ground people, no harm no foul. When you have that much extra equipment stacked on regular harness, there is the rare occasion that something goes wrong. Glad no one was hurt but how embarassing to have that happen at a show!!
Wow that’s a lot of equipment to get tangled. Everybody seemed to handle it beautifully though. I could see that turning out to be a nasty situation.
In the “draft world” you usually find that people–knowledgable people–jump in to help and things are usually ok. And usually it is some sort of equipment malfunction. I once helped with a 6-up that managed to get out of the show arena and had the wheel horses go down and they ended up under the wagon. And they patiently waited while he got them unhitched. A well-placed knee on the neck helped that along. But mostly the horses (Percherons) were rock stars and did not make it difficult. I personally pulled several broken pieces of harness, including a broken tug, put of the pile-up. It was the first time I had seen anything like that up close, and I was amazed at how calm and cool everyone was.
I was watching it live on my computer at the time and it was handled very very well. The lady had been on the ground earlier as they went around the arena (you see it on the video as well) and I guess she was very attentive because she sure was at the horses right away.
The ground crew did a great job as well and it helped that the horses were well behaved!
It started before the video camera got on it. So, its hard to tell what happened…but WinfieldFarm said the lines got caught up. I just saw a horse being pulled down or falling over…scary.
But, what amazed me is how everyone got right in there, disregarding their own welfare. The woman was already there holding his head down until the ground crew came in when the video rolled to them.
the guy laying on his head is in front of a hitch of 4 as well as the horse paired with the one on the ground. Talk about adrennal response.
Impressed all around. The driver should be proud of his hitch…they did an outstanding job, especially when faced with disaster. That is one heck of a well trained hitch.
Hats off to them all.
It was the Royal, so you expect top shelf hitches, and handlers, and they sure all proved that.
All those horses are so freaking beautiful!!! What incredible turnouts.
The horse that went down is a very good boy. Even with someone laying on him, if he had wanted to make trouble, he could have. Well trained with good minds.
I wonder how long it takes to get them all ready? I yabitch if it takes me over an hour to prep for a show. 
At 1:14, she was already checking something on the harness of the first two horses.
My favourites are always the clydes, but maybe not this particular hitch.
There were many comments on the Canadian bb right after the incident complimenting the driver and the ground crew and admiring the horses’ poise!
Oh, and watching them get ready is more fun than watching the show itself (a bonus when you don’t have tickets for the show itself) and the fact that they gather in a low and tiny ring before they go on to the big arena is quite impressive.
I couldn’t help but notice the difference between this video and the old one that someone reposted with what appears to be saddlebreds in harness. I’m not trying to compare the saddlebreeds to the Percherons, so please don’t make that assumption.
I’m just comparing the two videos and how the people in them acted.
Notice how you didn’t hear any screaming or yelling on this video? But on that other one- with just single horses to carts, there is lots of screaming, gasping etc. and it appeared to be coming from the spectators.
In this video, everyone was quiet and still. The horses were so quiet and cooperative and the hitch crew went right to work. I have a Haflinger- just one- but Percherons are my favorites. I know several people who have a Percheron or two. A couple of them farm and one lady uses hers to keep up her pastures and has a carriage, too.
I ride my hafie, but recently got a cart and harness. I thought I’d be moving to the Houston area, but we are staying here in Louisiana for the forseeable future.
Okay, dumb question but maybe someone more knowledgeable on this forum can answer, what does one have tied up financially speaking in rigs like those?
My understanding from people who were there is that the L lead horse had what I call a fainting goat moment, a friend of mine (hi Joan 
)calls them Clydesdale moments, where for reasons that vary, the horses just sort of get overwrought, and stop, fuss, and sometimes fall down.
I had posted this video on TOB because someone had posted that Country Pleasure Arabian show trainwreck, to show the contrast of when things go wrong at a draft show vs light horse showing. I always say that when something goes wrong in the ring at a draft show, it doesn’t matter if it’s your friend, your ex-wife, the guy that slept with her and the reason she’s your ex-wife, when something goes wrong it is all hands on deck until everything is as safe and under control as it can possibly be.
That level of on the ground response is what you can expect and count on at a draft horse show. It takes a big crew to put a 6 in the ring, only two of that crew are in the ring, most everyone else is at the back gate. When something goes wrong, as you can see, it is all hands on deck. Figure an average crew of 4-6 people for a 6, sometimes more, sometimes less. That’s a crowd of people who know what they are doing poised ringside, and then the 6’s are going, they are poised and ready to go, and you can see why.
My guess is if you’d had the crew from this draft video ringside at the Arabian show, after the first lap someone would have stepped out, gotten a hold of that horse, and bulldogged him down! Gotta remember, to those guys, that was just a yearling running loose
To cost- it can vary, a lot. The horse could be anywhere from 10-90K a piece, the harness from 3-10K per horse, the wagons from ~15-50K. Sometimes the bottom range can be lower, you can find a deal here and there. The upper range is the wagons and the leaders of the top horses in the country.
So, safe to say it’s a rich man’s (or woman’s) endeavor.
To put a 6 in the ring, generally, yes…but there are some that have worked very hard, built it up over years, it’s a family affair, not a paid professional crew. But at the very tip top, usually you can identify a hitch by what business enterprise it’s associated with.
At the single horse level, there are plenty of people like Joan and me who are slogging along with one horse or two.
[QUOTE=enjoytheride;5449839]
A draft horse in 6 horse hitch gets tangled in his lines and goes down
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEVQWN3Q32Y&feature=player_embedded[/QUOTE]
I was nervous viewing this video at first and fearing the worst possible outcome. Thankfully that fear turned into amazement after seeing how calm that BIG Percheron was that went down, the other being led away, and the rest of the team standing patiently before exiting the arena. Everyone involved should be commended: how professional the announcer and audience conducted themselves and the team of people rushing to the aid of that horse/hitch team in trouble! Brought tears to my eyes.
I just LOVE those BIG draft horses and especially Percherons. Does anyone know the breeder/farm of that team or can provide a link? Very impressive team!!
I see it as the same as dog owners… Hyper dogs tend to have hyper owners… Lazy dogs have couch potato owners… Serious working dogs, have serious working owners… It’s kind of the same in the horse world. You want a go go pony, you get an arab or similar light horse breed, but when it all falls to heck in a hand basket, you get crazy people and hotter horses that picked up on the atmosphere and went crazy too. I grew up in arabs, its amazing how the sanest arab can go crazy when the people in the room need some serious clinical help and medication! Maybe that’s why at the arab shows, we’re drinking before 10am…
I see draft people as very “no nonsense” types, and that’s what we saw in this video. I know these are big horses, but “sane” for the most part and if their people are reacting in a sanely fashion, they follow suit. I do think the arab show would have went better if people would have just calmed down (audience big time!) however, i’m not sure it would have been safe for anyone to have manhandled that horse until he/she was sane enough to be grabbed. It could have ended in disaster. It’s just such a hotter breed that may have reacted quite strongly to being manhandled, and then remembered it forever and have a big mental block to get over it.
I also think there is a big difference in the training time with the arab and the percherons. With the Perchies, this is all they do. With the arab, driving is an afterthought for most… They are mostly ridden much more than driven, and rarely driven in a ring with other horses driving at the same time outside of the show ring. Kinda makes it a disaster waiting to happen…
Very impressed with the Percheron video though. Handled VERY well! I remember watching these classes at the state fairs. Very cool!
