Having fun with my endurance horse in the snow - PICS!

[Auventera_Two]

After 10 fresh new inches of snow, I thought I’d try out a new “sport!” :lol: This is the first time she’s ever pulled anything - especially an intertube! She’s young and green, but what a good girl. She didn’t protest, and genuinely ENJOYED herself! She loves to get out and do things. What a sweetheart!

I wasn’t brave enough to canter, but we did trot a little bit. She ground drives very well, and of course I took time to accustom her to the tube scooting along behind before I hooked her up to it and got on. But as is her typical fashion, she handled it A++, and made me proud. (this is the advantage to raising your own baby! you accustom them to all sorts of stuff when they’re BABIES. hehehe. It makes your job MUCH easier later on)

[Auventera_Two]

And a couple more pics.

[ChocoMare]

What a riot! :winkgrin:

[jazzrider]

How fun is that? Super pics! :yes: I better not show my hubby, otherwise next time it snows here in VA he’ll be hooking up our horses! :lol:

I wish we had a white Christmas here – it was sunny and almost 50 degrees today.

Merry Christmas!

[tpup]

That looks like so much fun!! What a pretty horse you have. Thanks for sharing!

[grayarabpony]

Looks like fun. How fast did you go?

[Chief2]

Oh, looks like so much fun! I wanted to do this on my x-c skis with my first horse, but since he had more go than whoa, the idea was vetoed at home. It looks like you had a great time!

[winona]

cool!!! I have wanted to do that with my mini who drives. Seems like when we have snow and a day off…it is way too cold (for my kids).

[Huntertwo]

What a neat idea! You have a wonderful horse there A2.

[Jennifer_Alcott]

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!!

AWESOME!!!

Reminds me of the crazy things we subjected our saint of a Morgan to when I was a kid…we lived in the Connecticut and Massachusetts (the Berkshires) in the 70’s, and I can remember saddling up Bilbo (our wonderful Morgan gelding) and then taking a rope and tying a toboggan to the saddle horn. One person would ride the horse, and the rest of us would sit on the toboggan and enjoy the wild ride. And of course, in a pinch, if you couldn’t find a rope, you just sat on the toboggan and hung onto poor Bilbo’s tail! Fortunately, his tail was long enough (being a Morgan, and all!) that his hooves just missed the toboggan when we were hanging onto his tail.

But that seemed rather safe and tame compared to the times that my father would tie to toboggan to the bumper of the family car, and tow all four of us kids ON THE SNOW COVERED ROADS!!! When he’d see an oncoming car, he’d honk the horn, which was our signal to jump off on the ditch side of the road, and he’d stop the car. Once the oncoming car had passed us, we’d get back on the toboggan, and away we’d go again!

Those were the days before helmets, safety consciousness, and child endangerment laws!

My mother, my sisters, my brother, and I often talk about how we’re amazed that we all actually survived our childhood.

[Auventera_Two]

Jennifer - what wonderful stories!! :lol: You’re right, it’s amazing any of us survived our childhood! :lol:

[citydog]

Oh man that looks like fun.

Might need to dig out the long lines…

[prudence]

Wow, can’t believe you ride/drive in the snow! The toboggan behind the truck sounds absolutely thrilling. When I was little, we used to ride in the back of my dad’s pickup, standing up and holding on with our fingers in the little groove on top of the cab on the freeway. I always told my dad nice try (in trying to get rid of us!).

Another snow video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNo7BGf0Gp8&feature=related

[Huntertwo]

@Jennifer Alcott;2892364

AWESOME!!!

Reminds me of the crazy things we subjected our saint of a Morgan to when I was a kid…we lived in the Connecticut and Massachusetts (the Berkshires) in the 70’s, and I can remember saddling up Bilbo (our wonderful Morgan gelding) and then taking a rope and tying a toboggan to the saddle horn. One person would ride the horse, and the rest of us would sit on the toboggan and enjoy the wild ride. And of course, in a pinch, if you couldn’t find a rope, you just sat on the toboggan and hung onto poor Bilbo’s tail! Fortunately, his tail was long enough (being a Morgan, and all!) that his hooves just missed the toboggan when we were hanging onto his tail.

But that seemed rather safe and tame compared to the times that my father would tie to toboggan to the bumper of the family car, and tow all four of us kids ON THE SNOW COVERED ROADS!!! When he’d see an oncoming car, he’d honk the horn, which was our signal to jump off on the ditch side of the road, and he’d stop the car. Once the oncoming car had passed us, we’d get back on the toboggan, and away we’d go again!

Those were the days before helmets, safety consciousness, and child endangerment laws!

My mother, my sisters, my brother, and I often talk about how we’re amazed that we all actually survived our childhood.

When we were young we lived on a dead end. (Now they call them Cul-de-sacs)
So we were usually one of the last roads to get plowed.

Anyway, my older brother, (who was always trying to kill me anyway:))
had a Camaro and we used to do bumper skiing.

We’d hang on to the back bumper with just our winter boots on as he’d do “Donuts” around the dead end. Ah, to be young again. :yes:

Edited to add: Since I have been misquoted on TMP, It wasn’t my parents towing me around behind their “pickup truck”.

[kmw2707]

Great Pics AT! Brings back fond memories from childhood for me too!

[Fiat_Lux]

Very cool! Looks like fun! I would love to try skijoring, but I haven’t been able to convince either of my brothers to ski behind my horse yet!

[kansasgal]

You look like you’re both having so much fun.

Thanks for sharing.
Great pictures, and I love all that pink.

Jennifer Alcott- Bilbo must have been a saint, great stories . Bless his soul.

Yes, that looks like one way to put the fun back into winter with horses.

We had a white Christmas here in Kansas, which is pretty rare.
Yesterday, I drove by a snow covered (sports) playing field, and saw a guy on skis holding a small parachute. There was just enough wind that he was being pulled along at a nice clip. So many possibilities for fun in the snow!

Best wishes for a safe and happy new year.

[Thomas_1]

I notice you don’t have a collar on. I also notice you have no trace carriers.

How did you attach the traces?

How did you prevent the mare pulling you from her mouth and the reins?

When you made your turn how did you stop the traces getting caught round her legs?

When she transitioned down from trot how did you prevent the tire going forward and into her?

Why do you put a numnah (saddlecloth)under her surcingle (you might call it a lunge roller?)? Or is it a driving saddle?? (difficult to see in the photo)

I thought you didn’t like bits in horses. Do you always use one now? And are you always using a riding bit for driving and longlining etc? How do you compensate for the extra length of leverage?

[pandorasboxx]

Yeehaw!

Now that looks like fun!

Makes me wish it would snow here…

[marta]

thomas_1

@Thomas_1;2902861

I notice you don’t have a collar on. I also notice you have no trace carriers.

How did you attach the traces?

How did you prevent the mare pulling you from her mouth and the reins?

When you made your turn how did you stop the traces getting caught round her legs?

When she transitioned down from trot how did you prevent the tire going forward and into her?

i’m still waiting for snow here in jersey however i’ve been hoping to try my version of ski joring with my mare. we’ve been ground driving for a little over a month now (under trainer’s supervision). we were going to try the harness next. however, i thought that i could try ski joring (having her pull my on my x country skis behind her) by using a surcingle and a breast collar with the pulling lines (probably yaht rope) attached to the surcingle rings and then using my ground driving lines as i normally would while ground driving. so there would be no pressure on her mouth other than maybe when i’d ask her for a downward transition or a stop.
i realize this is not a proper way to ‘drive’ but do you see anything inherently wrong with that set up? i mean anything that will be harmful to the horse? someone else here posted photos of her ski joring that way and it just looked so awesome. and yes, my mare is a saint and would have no objection to doing this even if i were holding to her tail, so that’s not a concern. i just don’t want to hurt her.