I saw this on their Facebook page. It shows a rider on a horse with harness tack in case the horse was needed in the carriage. It’s a beautiful turnout. The horse looks regal. 
Do most driving horses have their sight limited this much? I see some racehorses racing with what I’d call cups, they only seem to limit rear sight though.
Blinkers definitely stop them from seeing behind and to their side, but those blinkers are badly adjusted. You do have to periodically widen them especially if the harness has been in storage so hopefully it’s just an oversight, but I plead the 5th on fine harness horse practices (that top arm is leather covered with, you just manually adjust the blinker)
Here’s a picture showing a more appropriate blinker
Those blinkers are badly fitted. Should have loosened them to make more open for sight.
Beautiful horse and turnout.
I’ve never seen this type of turn out before. Years and years ago I watched a class that had two horses in tandem. The lead horse was not pulling the cart in anyway and wore a saddle.
IIRC, originally in a tandem, the lead horse was intended to be ridden when Driver arrived at the location for a Hunt.
So letting the Wheeler do the “heavy lifting” left the Leader with more energy for the intended job.
Agree, those blinkers look too close to the eyes.
Blinkers are meant so the horse listens to your voice commands & communication through your hands to the lines. They shouldn’t cut off any forward vision.
The leaders in any tandem or team (4) are never pulling the carriage in any meaningful way (or not at all). If you look at combined driving teams, typically the wheelers are noticeably larger*. The front is all flash, the rear wheels are the engine, so to speak
'* In 8 horse draft teams, like the Budweiser Clydesdales, the wheelers are absolutely massive
I watched a couple videos of 4 horse teams competing in what I’d call cross country. (marathon?) The wheelers seem to have more restrictive blinkers.
I’d definitely be concerned about the restricted view of a riding horse that has blinkers like the Miramar horse.
I was so curious about the placement of the blinkers I looked for more of the Rose Parade pix. It appears they set all the bridles like this.
I can’t think of any wheelers in combined driving that I have seen that have more restrictive blinkers than the leaders, although every harness is a highly personal affair so I could see something like different blinkers on different horses. Also there are different size blinkers as well. The pony in the picture uses horse size blinkers partially because he’s got a wide head and it balances out better but mostly because I very much don’t want him to see the carriage or any whip movement out of the corner of his eye since it’s pretty active in the air on marathon. The driver’s upper body has a huge range of motion in an obstacle so by definition the whip lash ALSO has a huge range of motion.
Maybe they did that ulta close placement because of the parade?
Probably, they’re in the parade every year so maybe they’ve got what they need figured out.
The Miramar horses are all Saddlebreds, with comparatively long, narrow heads. This fitting, while close to the eye, is the traditional look seen on Saddlebreds in Carriage Driving. They can afford anything in harness, use the finest makers, with harness made to suit the vehicle being driven. You will see this tight, big blinker fitting in older driving photos. There was a LOT out on the roads to frighten a sensitive driving horse and limiting vision to “straight ahead” was a safety measure in preventing spooking and runaways. Not seeing things or such a short glimpse horse had no time to process “scary, danger” before thing was gone, made snug blinkers very common in the past. Jobs horse did, could make blinker setting choices on the animal. Morgan Currier and Ives prints all seem to show wide open, square blinkers. Maybe a breed or location (New England) style?
The first photo of the ridden horse shows him set up as the “Cockhorse.” A Cockhorse ridden by a groom/guard wore harness and saddle with singletree beside rider. Singletree is then connected with rope to the wheeler’s pole end when going up steep hills, mountains, bad roads, sticky ground. No pole between Leaders. These places would be where ALL the four Team horses are pulling hard. Usually any Leader pulling is done on straightaways so Leaders are not pulling the pole sideways to knock the Wheelers aside and down! The Cockhorse out front adds his strength in getting the vehicle up past the hard section of road. Again all FIVE horses are pulling straight forward.
The Cockhorse is mostly a European tradition, but rich Americans copied the European traditions to be correct, including having a Cockhorse with their turnouts in certain settings.
Some Inns in the UK and Europe stationed a Cockhorse with rider at the base of steep locations to be hired for getting up to the top of a mountain, etc. Those coaches are heavy, very weighty when fully loaded with passengers and luggage, so the Four horse Teams do need help when facing steep climbs.
Drivers of Fours and Tandems need to be able to “hold off” the wheeler/s during turns, so they are following Leaders tracks, not cutting in on a shorter path. Going shorter means you hit things!! Tandem is the “Poor Man’s Four” and takes much skill to keep them going forward. One rein twitch can have the Leader coming back around to visit with you in a heartbeat!! Tandems were seen at Hunts, with the fully saddled and bridled Hunt horse in front (a Sporting Tandem now), doing no work (slack traces) so Leader was fresh for chasing the fox. Groom drove the Wheeler and cart when Leader was removed.
Two ways of connecting a Tandem Leader are Tandem keys put on the collar short tugs of Wheeler to carry long Leader Traces. The other is using Tandem Bars, two hinged bars between Wheeler and Leader, which we found to be much better (SAFER) as a way to connect the horses. Ours were modern Tandem bars, only as wide as the horse, not wide and floppy as the old timers used. Did not need special length Leader traces. We had tried the Tandem Keys, hung up both Leader and Wheeler with the long leader traces dragging the ground on turns before going to the Tandem bars! Ack!! Definitely not suited for our CDE tandem! Forgiving horses kept us from wrecking.
There were also working horse Tandems pulling carts to deliver goods to homes. They worked in narrow locations, alleys, but needed the strength of 2 horses to move the loads of coal, refuse in the heavy built carts.
I love seeing the Miramar horses being driven. Always correct, properly turned out with their vehicle. They have been shown with the beautiful horse drawn fire engines and stagecoach in past Rose Parades.
I’m very familiar with them and showed at shows with them, generally they don’t set the blinkers so close, but with it being the parade, it makes sense.
The horse that Carson is on seem especially narrow.
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