I started riding an 18hh black Percheron/Friesian mare. Had my first lesson on her Sunday. It’s now Wednesday and I am still sore! Anyway, being a big girl she’s got big floaty movements, her trot really throws me out of the saddle and several times I found myself balancing on her mouth. Also her head is HUGE and several times she was turning to the inside and all the strength in my right arm pulling on the outside rein wasn’t enough. She responds well to inside leg and is really a kind and willing mare. The thought of cantering her though -yikes! But I do want to get there. Any tips on how to handle a horse of this size?
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I will be interested to see some responses because I offered a barnmate to try to get her 17.2’ish Shire cantering. Call it a moment of hubris that I might regret later.
Right now I’m working on getting my 17H WB mare cantering. She doesn’t have the best natural canter, and it is so much bigger than I’m used to with my more trained 15.2ish mare. So whenever she starts to canter, it almost feels like every stride is going to turn into a buck. What I’m doing is I just try to keep my pelvis forward in the saddle and my shoulders back, so I don’t contract into a fetal position and try to think a bit of being a Weeble Wobble sitting up there in the saddle.
There is no shame in doing a couple strides and then coming back. The nice thing about these big horses is that yes, the stride is big, but it’s also slow, so it can be easier to adjust to. Since it sounds like this mare is pretty well trained and steady, it might be possible to have your instructor put you on the lunge the first couple times you canter her, so you can focus on adapting to her stride without having to stress about steering as well.
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I wouldn’t think of her any differently than I’d think of a smaller horse.
She still needs to learn how to soften, learn how to give to pressure, get off their front ends, etc. The major issue I see with most drafts is that they aren’t bred for riding, they are bred for pulling, and pulling typically involves throwing their weight into something and tapping into all that power to get the job done. The canter is not a gait which serves the job of pulling particularly well, so most drafts don’t naturally have great canters. If you look at still shots of a lot of draft breeds in action, you will find that you can see their center of balance is a bit forward (or a lot forward) because, again, that’s how you pull: throw your weight forward and dig in.
You are taking lessons, so unfortunately some of the “how to handle” part is going to be limited by what instructor is able to help you with, but if I were working with a horse like this I wouldn’t be asking for/allowing that big trot, because I can almost guarantee the horse is all leg action and isn’t really lifting through their back, which is part of why you’re getting launched forward (I don’t know your level of riding proficiency so I am making a bit of an assumption there, but even very good riders can get thrown off balance by a horse that is not “giving them a place to sit” by engaging their ab muscles and lifting their backs - if they aren’t doing this, you are the rider are absorbing all of that energy from that flashy, upright movement). I’d be keeping this mare on a comfortably-sized circle for her size and asking for that inside bend until she gives and slows her trot and actually starts to engage her core.
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Yes to this about trot quality. My horse has a very soft trot but even so there is a huge difference between her correct trot and her upside down trot. I can sit her correct trot up into lengthening but her rushed upside down trot is uncomfortable at any speed. I think it would be easy with a horse who has a naturally flashy trot to mistake a rough rushy trot for a correct lengthening or even extension, but from the description I doubt the horse is at the stage to do a balanced lengthening which requires the beginning of collection.
I would also recommend longe lessons with a bucking strap to hold onto until you can at least post confidentially. If you are ending up balancing on her mouth you will destroy any chance of later teaching her to collect and lengthen correctly.
My horse is half Clydesdale and not as big as yours, but I had a good tip. Rather than do a lot of spiral in, spiral out, to do haunches in and out on the long side of the arena to build handiness. I also am pretty consistent about keeping her flexed and bending while hacking. My girl can pull like a freight train in the hunt field and gallopping through tight trails is definatly harder than on a slimmer horse.
Could you provide more context on your background and experience level? Suggestions of haunches in is great but if you’ve never ridden one and are on a lesson horse who has never been asked, it isn’t going to be a super useful suggestion. Knowing where you are at and your understanding of the horses training helps curate responses.
Just keep in mind that longing can be physically very hard on drafts.
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I’ll respond, because I’ve owned and trained and ridden a horse like this (on purpose!) LOL.
Bob was not supposed to be a “show” horse in any respect. I bought him as a 2 yr old, as a lead pony prospect, because I got tired of riding “small” lead ponies and getting bashed around by racehorses who would try to bowl me over on post parade. So I bought Bob. Bob was 3/4 percheron, 1/4 ranch pony, bred as a logging horse. I broke him the same as race and show horses, lunge and long line, and get on and ride. No issues. But of course he had to learn to neck rein, at least adequate for what I needed. But he figured that out OK. When I bought him, he was skin and bones and full of worms, and about 15.3 but kind of leggy, which I liked. But a few years later, he was 17.3 at the whither (if you could figure out where that was) and about 20 hands half way up his big cresty neck, and around 2000 lbs. Black, with a star and a couple little hind socks. Riding him was like riding a charger to the crusades. I’m 5’3". My DH, at a long legged 6’2" looked great on him- the only rider who ever really fit Bob. Suffice it to say that I no longer got pushed around by racehorses on post parade any more, or in the morning. A fractious race horse would take one look at him, sigh, and settle down immediately, walk quietly beside him… or else look “wide eyed” and say “Mommy? Is that you?”.
Bob started working post parade as a 3 yr old, at Sandown by the Sea, in Victoria BC, about the last year they ran races there. Bob had no issues with this. Bob had a GREAT trot, I had dressage people come to me and want to buy him that fall, LOL, had to beat them away with a stick. However, his canter was “drafty”, not dressage quality. But he had a heart of gold, so kind and funny. To sit the drafty canter, sit down and lean back a bit (or at least sit up, not forward) and let it happen.
Bob loved working post parade, he felt it was his “calling”. We would pick up our racehorse coming out of the paddock and walk along in front of the crowd, then “make the turn” to gallop back in front of the crowd in the opposite direction. He would do a canter piruoette (sorry I’m not a DQ so don’t know how to spell that), and take off at the gallop, squealing with pleasure, and rocking with a pitching canter. Fortunately, my regular jockey knew that this was OK and not an issue, but on the occasion that I took a different jockey, they would get a bit wide eyed. 2000 lbs of squealing percheron rocking down the lane in celebration was impressive. But he was always rock steady and dependable in every way, very intuitive about what was needed of him. Show him once, and he would do as asked from then on. Occasionally, there was a flying lead change, sometimes asked for, sometimes not, but associated with a roll of the drums in celebration. Wheeee!
I used to lend him to various jockeys who would come by the barn to borrow him, to take their kids for pony rides around the barn areas. Bob enjoyed this, and often got a doughnut in payment. Bob would take doughnuts off people who were not paying adequate attention to their doughnut. Muffins also. He had muffin and doughnut radar, and was not shy about asking for treats if he thought someone was a soft touch.
Bob was a very fun guy to be associated with, always a laugh. Dirty stall, expensive to feed, and was hard on fences. Also an escape artist on occasion. Kept him barefoot, always on pavement or racing surface dirt, or home in a paddock or field so no rocks to worry about. Easier on everyone.
So I don’t know if my experience will help you at all, but there it is. Drafty guys like Bob are very sensitive, very smart, and have a huge work ethic. They are smarter than most people you meet, and probably smarter than most other horses too. If you watch a 6 horse hitch work, those horses get very little individual attention, yet are fully obedient, moving forward and sideways, elegant responses to very little cue. They are selectively bred FOR this. “Less is more” for them as far as riding them. Show them what you want and let them do their job, and don’t interfere much. And give them a cookie afterwards. Easy peasy.
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yes to this! They need way more room to move.
I have an 18h Percheron and once in a while i ride him around the farm, but only at a walk, and usually bareback in a hackamore. I adopted him to give him a rest …he has bilateral stringhalt, though our hills and a lot lot of freedom of movement has really improved his condition. Once he gets off a halt he is fine, you’d never know. But more often than not, his first step is a really high foot on both side (more right than left). It feels funny to be aboard when he walks off.
oh, and his canter shakes the trees!!
yes to this too!! Percheron intelligence is a thing of legend!!!
I have a 16.3 Irish Draught mare, and I’d second a lot of what’s been said up-thread.
You really want to get the trot in a good place before you try doing the canter in the ring on a circle (as opposed to out in a field or down an open trail).
So, you want an adjustable trot that responds well to cues, you want the horse to be able to bend and counterbend, and do clean transitions walk to trot and trot to walk. It really helps to have an instructor with you to make you do things the right way as opposed to accepting whatever the horse gives you.
Sit up in the saddle and keep your butt in the saddle. Do that for the trot, and then for the canter as well. Large horses, particularly if they’re green, like having you give them direction and stability.
Less is more absolutely when it comes to the aids, but my horse appreciates when I’m clear about what I’m asking her to do and how I want her to do it. It takes a lot of work for her to step round into the canter and she needs to know that it is what I want her to do.
My experience is that she is smart, and once she learns what you want she likes getting the right answer when you ask the question.
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God bless Bob - he sounds like a lot of fun.
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Must see pictures of Bob!!! What a wonderful story!
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I’ll second a lot of comments here. In my experience, drafts tend to be intelligent and really desire to be working ‘helping’ people. But also good at continuing the job by themselves, you’ll see well trained logging horses for example running the skid road all by themselves, back and forth. It is what they were bred for. There is a flip side to this, like any horse but more so, they have a strong sense of what I call ‘justice’. You need to ask the question (haunches in, trot, pick your foot up, etc) in a way that they really understand. You can’t bully them into something; they may give in but in a very sour way. So, make sure you are asking things clearly, which means slower, which seems odd with an intelligent animal. Voice commands are really useful in this respect.
Generally, they have walks that are deceptively big, high action trots (all sounds and fury and show), and nobody bred them for the canter!
The Friesian half will have changed all that up a bit.
It sounds like this horse hasn’t been a driving horse? If so, your life may be easier. Some, not all, but some, driving drafts tend to be very heavy in the hand. They’ve learned to ignore the weight of the lines and person hanging on their mouths. (People shouldn’t hang on their mouths, but with a lot of farm equipment it is the easiest thing to do to keep balance)
Finally, avoid small circles and longing if at all possible. It really isn’t good or pleasant for them to do it more than they need to. Though, they can be astonishingly fast and agile.
And, Bob sounds like a dream horse!
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I shall try to post the only picture I have of Bob that is available. I have a lovely one of him with my DH on him, scowling (the DH, not Bob). But that pic is not digital, and my scanner is dead. So the one I will try to post here is just my friend Jan on him, me on the ground handing up her racehorse to go out to meet up with the jock. Taken at the backside of the overflow stabling at Hastings Park, in the Agridome in Vancouver. I don’t remember who took this picture that morning. The Agridome has not been used for overflow stabling for years now, as racing is dying and the track is dying a slow and painful death due to mismanagement and decrepitude.!
PS this is NOT 3 years ago, it’s like 20 years ago now
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Bob was a handsome guy, and he knew it!
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Here is another Bob story for you, a bit famous at the time.
I was training a lovely gelding for an outside owner (one of the guys who soured me substantially on training for outside owners). His barn name was Denver. He was a sweetheart horse, and talented too. But during the winter at his owner’s farm, he was injured. The owner put a visiting child on him and sent them out to gallop. Denver ran off with the child, and hit the outside rail of the galloping track, shattered the 2X6, and drove the pointed end into his chest about a foot. Bust the child up too. And Denver broke his upper jaw too. The local vet was driving by, and saved Denver’s life, and he was transported back to the owner’s barn. I heard about this after the fact, when the owner phoned me to come clean. I was SICK about this, very angry. Such a disaster. It was winter, and he was supposed to be turned out for winter. Anyway, come spring, Denver came into my barn at the track. He looked like an SPCA case, and the owner remarked that he thought the horse was almost ready to run. Give me a break!!! ARRRGGGHHHH!!! I was very pissed off, this lovely horse, in this condition. You could not put tack on him, and bits of wood and pus was still being ejected from the partially healed wound on his chest, and the wire had been taken out of his broken jaw, but the scar was still fresh there. He had not been able to eat for weeks. Skin and bones. I kept him blanketed in the stall, and fed him for several weeks before doing much of anything with him. But he was still too thin to ride, or gallop, IMO. So Bob’s job was to pony Denver in the morning. And Denver improved.
So as Denver got stronger, and he was the only one we had to pony every morning, we galloped along a bit, stretching out both Bob, and Denver to perhaps more of a gallop than a regular pony would do. Because Bob was so tall, I had to let out more shank that one normally would do, which wasn’t a problem as Denver wasn’t going to be kicking anyone. So as we picked up speed, late in the morning’s training hours, we passed by the chute where the starting gate was set up for morning training. One guy was “putting it away”, pulling it forward with the tractor, to back it into the back of the chute until the next day’s training. So the tractor popped out onto the outside of the track, and Denver spooked.
As Denver spooked, he jumped a bit towards Bob, and interfered with Bob’s stride. Bob couldn’t get his front feet landing gear down. He tripped, at speed. And went down, at speed. From many years as a pony rider, my shank hand was firm on the shank, it does not loosen. Denver pulled me out of the tack entirely, flying through the air parallel to the ground, flying like superman (but without the cape). I bellied down onto the ground, landing like a 747, still with a good hold on the end of the shank, as Denver stopped politely. I got up, and looked back at Bob, who was also getting up, with sand on the top of the saddle, and on the top of his rump. He had cartwheeled, a full cartwheel, behind me, as I flew off his back. If Denver had not removed me from the tack I would have been crushed under 2000 lbs of Bob. Bob got up, facing the other way on the track. Denver and I walked back to Bob, and I took him by the tail before he left us. Bob stopped, being held by his tail, and Denver and I took his rein.
At this point, the fella who had moved the tractor approached and asked if we were OK. We were. I asked him to hold Denver, and leg me back up onto Bob. He did that, and we continued our trip around the track. The next time by that crater in the ground, Bob’s ears swiveled to inspect the damage. The crater was quite famous actually, there was only one other rider on the track at that point, and he came by, saw the damage, couldn’t believe it.
Bob was OK, his knee had a bit of a bruise on it, and Denver and I escaped just fine. But it was quite a morning. I cheated death that day.
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I would have gone to the races just to watch Bob. “Bob the Majestic” is spot-on. Thanks for the stories!
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Hubby’s mare is a big bodied full clyde.
He mostly trail rides but she’s great in the ring too, at w/t. Canter is tough for her, as she just needs more room. She’ll canter on the trail (with suitable motivation and plenty of room ahead,) so I think she’s just not balanced enough to really maintain the gait in a dressage ring. The corners just come up too fast. Drafts also aren’t really bred/built to canter; it tends to be a training challenge for many of them.
Aside from that, though. I expect the draft mare to be as light off my leg or in my hands as any of my WBs. That’s a matter of training, though I admit, sometimes motivating her to really go forward is a lot of work for the rider.
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Some seem to be able to be trained to canter, in a straight line anyway. I’ve always enjoyed watching this event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bm6AkAwgGg
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