[QUOTE=Reynard Ridge;2781315]
What I think is so fascinating about that photo is that then entire group (humans and equines alike) look so unflustered.
[/QUOTE] I’ve never been one to panic or make a drama out of a crisis! :winkgrin:
And I guess my staff and horses are used to me and hence also in that ilk
OMG. I just saw Thomas’s picture. I had to just laugh. I had the same though, you all look so CALM! Like oh well. We’ll just wait till we can keep going. How the heck did you get outta that thing? It looks like the person is trying topull the the jump from underneath the horse, but that jump doesn’t look like the pvc fences!!! Did that horse keep jumping or did he realize the trouble he got into?
That photo is just too funny. I love it.
The horse couldn’t keep jumping. He had a horse behind him and one alongside him!
One of the advantage of driving “multiples” is that you can use the others as an anchor. Its why I’m of the strong opinion that when doing commercial work such as weddings or film work that its better with a pair and never a single horse. It means that when the unexpected or bizarre happens that scares the pants of one horse you can use one horse to anchor the other.
So when the miscreant jumped the fence the others anchored him back and stopped him dead which reinforced my commands and brought about a much quicker halt than I could ever do.
It was a solid wood hurdle and it was dismantled to get him off it! Needless to say we were eliminated for setting the grooms down!!! (and wrecking the course :winkgrin:)
No, not keep jumping that fence ! - but did he ever try jumping something while in harness at a later time or was that scene unpleasant enough for him?
I saved that photo on my desktop, I just can’t believe everyone is so uneffected!!!
No he didn’t. That was the first and last time he tried that trick!
Thomas - I like how everyone is non-flustered but the guy next to him is just a wee bit embarrassed of his buddy, Like “Homer did it again!”
The original photo is an awesome shot! It just goes to show how much fun driving can be and even the horses have a bit of fun too!
It’s nice to know that I’m not the only person to have a horse jump in harness. A couple of years ago, I was trying to train my Hackney pony, Crackers, to walk through a puddle if I asked him to, instead of skittering around it to avoid the monsters lurking therein. Of course, if he encounted a puddle in his pasture, he would slog right through it, but heaven forbid he do it under harness.
I found a good shallow puddle after a rain, and made several attempts to get him to walk through it. We circled endlessly. He finally seemed to accept the concept, and was going right for it, and jumped the darned thing. It was embarrassing as of course one of my neighbors witnessed it.
I eventually got him to go through puddles, but never forgot that day.
Rebecca
:ohorses definitely don’t need a jumping background to jump in harness. I was driving at a brisk trot across a pasture when my mare spotted a recently dug groundhog hole in her path (I couldn’t see it). I don’t know if it was the abrupt stop or the resulting takeoff that landed me on the dash and floor but, I think she thought she was jumping the grand canyon but, continued trotting like nothing happened as I tried to regain my composure.:
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