so, i am interested in info on how to train a horse/pony to pull so that i can use then to drag the arena…
I have the skills to train a horse to long line/dbl lunge. and, when i was a kid we also had a pony cart, so i have driven - but it was a while ago (cough cough)
so what would i need in terms of harness to hook a horse to a drag, and what would i need to do to teach them to pull?
and finally, how young can you have a horse pulling? similar to riding? or younger?
Consideration that come into play are size of equine, size of drag, age of animal.
Your animal needs to be VERY responsive on the long lines, both to voice command and rein signals. This takes a while to develop. Most baby horses under 4, have VERY little patience or any length of attention span to learn in! If you force the issue, you will develop other bad habits or evasions, because they are not having fun, can’t pay attention at this age. Then you get to FIX bad things later.
You want LONG long-lines, so animal is making big circles out there, not little short 20ft lines. As with a Dressage horse, he is moving out freely, lines down along his sides, not thru rein rings up high on his spine. Horse is BETWEEN the lines so you control both ends, whole body when working him. So a surcingle is usually needed, but doing it cheap, a saddle with tied down stirrups will work. You want stirrups for lines to run thru easily, give and take, no hanging up in rein pull or release way out there. Tied down under belly, stirrups keep the lines steady, no extra motion flopping when line is pulled.
You will need a breastcollar and long traces, a singletree, for basic pulling equipment. We start with small tires, they drag well, don’t hurt if they swing out and hit something. Logs or posts dragging are dangerous, snag easily, jump after catching on things. Punch a hole in the tread of tire, put a heavy stick or metal rod across the hole, with chain links hanging out to attach singletree to. We have someone drag the tire ahead of horse on long lines, let him follow it, watch it. Horse may be worked inside circle of dragging tire, gets used to seeing and hearing it. Horse is in an open bridle so he has excellent vision of what is happening. You should probably have someone walk WAY behind horse with breastcollar on, holding traces, with some occassional resistance. Person can lean back to pull traces, move them around so horse feels traces on rump, sides. Maybe work horse with traces between legs for a couple circles. Horse is NOT reactive to strange feel of harness in odd locations. If he is goosey, he needs more practice with traces there.
This work above, is going to cover a few weeks, of 3-5 works a week. Horse is responsive to voice, whip, reins, not just a robot to what you ask. Then you can attach the singletree, let it drag along on the ground. Couple sessions with singtree dragging thru the lesson, then attach the small tire to singletree after he is warmed up. We use a light string for tire the first few times. NOT binder twine, that stuff will hold an elephant when you NEED it to break! If and when string breaks, you stay calm, say Whoa, get your helper to tie tire back on. Everyone is calm, quiet. Horse stays quiet, because “This is training, WEIRD things happen, but people are not excited. Guess it is OK.” He gets to practice his STAND STILL. Horse needs to learn that pull and release of pull when string breaks, just happen.
After a few session of string attached tire, then you can link the singletree to tire with the chain length of about 12-16 inches so tire doesn’t come loose any more. Horse learns to deal with consistant drag, feel of tire swinging out on circle, may get a leg over trace, but doesn’t bother him because you have ALREADY practiced that. I would make some circles with leg over, before fixing trace. Do go in both directions, get the feel and pull on both sides of horse.
At this point, you may want a real harness or to add a crupper to the surcingle. We will put trace carriers on to hold traces up now, so we can do other things with horse in his Driving training.
Arena drags can be VERY heavy, they create constant friction with dirt contact. Different types of drags pull differently on the horse. With a young animal, they will quit when work scares them. Pulling heavy things that don’t come, is scary! Even older horses not used to pulling, have to LEARN that load will move if they try. Teaching them all to be brave, PULL, takes a bit of time. You have to build them up over a while, develop the muscles.
You MUST decide what kind of movement you want from horse, before loading him down with a possibly heavy dragging implement. If his future is as a Dressage horse, you will lose airy, light, lifted front end, when he drags heavy things. Heavy loads require horse to lower head and pull with the front AND hind legs to get things moved. Not a problem if horse is already a flat mover, low headed Western breed, his movement is not going to change dramatically. Pulling a bit of weight can change muscling too, you might like it or not.
We do use car and truck tires for any dragging, dragging pull is consistant, yet not real heavy. We want light and airy movement on our Driving animals that do Dressage. We have several tire sizes, depending on what we need. I have large horses, 16-17h. Smaller tires would be suitable for very young animals or small animals. Have only used the large implement tire on one horse who did NOT develop into a driving animal. Did show how athletic he was though, hopping back and forth across the traces at a canter! Certainly NOT afraid of a load behind either!! He just did not like Driving, wanted to stay a riding only, horse. Most folks use the big implement tires to develop strength in trained horses, way too heavy for beginning horses.
Have to say my barnyard always looks great when long lining colts dragging tires!!
I would be careful using young animals. Very easy to work them harder than you think, with driving. Bones and muscles are soft, unfit, still growing. I would be careful with arena dragging, probably do it all walking. Covering a lot of ground, slow and deliberate is best with weight behind. Farmers don’t work fields at the trot!! Long lining is different work, so different gaits would be fine there as long as horse stays obedient.
Lovely answer, thank you! This is a topic of interest to me as well.
wow, thanks SO MUCH for this super info!
lots of great stuff for me here.
i am curious about whether or not dragging a chain harrow (4’x6’ it is “light” enough for me to be able to move around if not pick up entirely) thru large grain sand would be enough weight to change the gait of a 14.2 cobby Connemara pony… said pony has fantabulous hind end, loads of suspension and ground covering gaits, and more of a pony front leg in that he lifts his knees higher that a WB would.
i totally get going slow, building muscles,. allowing them to learn about weight drag etc etc…
please tell me that you’re not thinking of using your brand new two year old connemara colt to drag the arena? 
this is no way to go “green”
I’ve always been told to keep your arena in the best shape you should drag often and do sweeping circles to evenly re-distribute the sand. I think it would be very difficult for any horse/ let alone pony do give you the quality job you want. All those circles and you would have a very dizzy horse.
oh, dont worry, he isnt going to drag an arena today or tomorrow… but it would be cool to teach him (and my mare) to drag the harrow so that when we cant get the tractor to the arena (too wet) then we can at least keep it worked so it is ridable.
as for the comments about keeping the arena is the best shape. in the winter it will either get dragged by the horses or not at all - and if it doesn’t get dragged it cant be ridden on as it can get quite hard… and i will not ride on hard footing. so, unless i buy a riding mower or something that can get out there without sinking - (but it isnt my arena so i dont really feel like putting money into a vehicle to drag) i will have to think creatively and find a way to do it. i have been hand raking but that is a huge task.
i figured it would be good to teach said pony (and horse) to pull and also get the arena done to boot.
if there are solid reasons why we shouldn’t use the horses to drag the arena with a light harrow, i would love to hear them.
ETA: i understand about growing bones, muscles etc. what i dont know about is pulling. And as i asked i think in my first post, at what age would it be appropriate to teach a youngster to pull some weight beyond just long lining? and, how do you determine what an appropriate amount of “light” weight would be ok for each animal so it doesn’t affect their gaits?
if my pony wont be able to drag the harrow, i could always find something else that is lighter that might also work. believe me anything is better that the concrete slab that the arena becomes once it rains!
A draft cross I used to have was trained to drive but I never did. The barn owner where I kept him drove so she had plenty of knowledge. She used him to drag the arena every once in a while and I was glad to have his driving skills used every now and again to keep him sharp. I think it’s a great skill to have!
[QUOTE=mbm;4860516]
And as i asked i think in my first post, at what age would it be appropriate to teach a youngster to pull some weight beyond just long lining?[/QUOTE]
It depends. Goodhors gave you some very, very good advice. I believe the answer to your question is there.
What do you mean by “…so it doesn’t affect their gaits?”
Hitch: i was just reminding a poster that I did ask in my first post what an appropriate age would be to teach this…
as for the effecting the gaits… if you read Goodhors’s post there was info in there about pulling affecting the manner in which the horse uses its body and that heavy pulling will affect the gaits ie: they loose light airy front end etc.
[QUOTE=mbm;4860811]
as for the effecting the gaits… if you read Goodhors’s post there was info in there about pulling affecting the manner in which the horse uses its body and that heavy pulling will affect the gaits ie: they loose light airy front end etc.[/QUOTE]
That isn’t what was said ! Goodhors merely said that farmers didn’t work at trot but you could do longreining.
[QUOTE=mbm;4860811]
Hitch: i was just reminding a poster that I did ask in my first post what an appropriate age would be to teach this… [/QUOTE]
Well, the correct answer is: It depends. You can start them with some kindergarten work at two, but many will not have the physical strength for doing what you are describing until they are AT LEAST four. It completely and totally depends on:
I see what you were referring to in Goodhors’s post:
You MUST decide what kind of movement you want from horse, before loading him down with a possibly heavy dragging implement. If his future is as a Dressage horse, you will lose airy, light, lifted front end, when he drags heavy things. Heavy loads require horse to lower head and pull with the front AND hind legs to get things moved. Not a problem if horse is already a flat mover, low headed Western breed, his movement is not going to change dramatically. Pulling a bit of weight can change muscling too, you might like it or not.
Seems pretty clear to me. And again, how much weight your horse can pull before it starts to “affect” anything depends on a number of factors: How often, how long, what type of weight, what type of footing…
[QUOTE=Thomas_1;4861211]
That isn’t what was said ! Goodhors merely said that farmers didn’t work at trot but you could do longreining.[/QUOTE]
ok, well i could of misunderstood… but it seemed pretty clear.
and as for as trotting, it never occurred to me that if you were asking a horse to pull something like a drag that you would do it at anything other than a walk.
longreining/double lunging is something else again.
ETA: i appreciate everyones input, especially Goodhors’s as it is always very interesting to learn about different disciplines and modes of training.
I like to use a forecart for dragging -saves me getting too huge of a face full of dirt, clothes full of dirt, as well as doing a lot of walking. It is just more pleasant.
For a team of drafts, a drag with long teeth or even a harrow works (I have a three point hitch on my forecart -which I love).
I don’t use a single horse though, even a draft for dragging. Way too much load for a single horse with my size drag and anything smaller (like they make for ATVs) is frankly a toy and would take forever with a horse or ATV to do my 100x200 ring.
I don’t like to use my horses for too much pulling, as it trains them to pull down and builds up short muscles, rather than long (think weight lifting type muscles). The occasional job yes, as regular work -no.
For a single horse, really a drag made out of chain link is going to be enough. That would do finish work but not anything more (like working in mud) or trying to chunk up a packed down 100-200 ring. Again, it does depend whether you have sand, or mix of sand and dirt.
Not to be a naysayer but If i hook a full sized drag to my ATV, which has a drag weight of 1500 pounds (500+ cc), it can barely pull it when it starts getting into the dirt. I don’t like to stress my ATV, so I use my 60 HP kubota to drag. My point is that a drag can really add weight -conditions dependent.
maybe terminology… but when i say “drag” i mean use something like a harrow or a chain link gate to fluff and even the sand. the harrow is 4’x6’ i believe and can be used with tines down or up which i think would affect how hard it is to pull (?). the gate is much smaller. both can be easily drug by a riding mower. the sand is apprx 2-3" deep and the arena is a bit bigger than a short court 
obviously it appears to be a bigger job than i thought it would be. the pony wont be pulling anything like that for a while since he is 2… however, we would like to teach the horses to pull so we can keep the arena workable in the winter.
Carolyn del Grosso, Gaithersburg, MD trained a young WB stallion:cool:/ she now shows him GP dressage:yes:
[QUOTE=mbm;4862158]
maybe terminology… but when i say “drag” i mean use something like a harrow or a chain link gate to fluff and even the sand. the harrow is 4’x6’ i believe and can be used with tines down or up which i think would affect how hard it is to pull (?). the gate is much smaller. both can be easily drug by a riding mower. the sand is apprx 2-3" deep and the arena is a bit bigger than a short court
obviously it appears to be a bigger job than i thought it would be. the pony wont be pulling anything like that for a while since he is 2… however, we would like to teach the horses to pull so we can keep the arena workable in the winter.[/QUOTE]
i mean use something like a harrow or a chain link gate to fluff and even the sand.
That is doable. The chain link type is very light -
It when you start having long tines that eat down deep into the sand or if the sand is a heavy type or compacted and you are using the drag to break it up…
sorry, my fault.
mbm has cross posted this in the Around the Farm forum.
http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/showthread.php?t=255361
I taught my appy mare to drag a chain link gate as an arena harrows in an afternoon, but to be fair, the mare had been extensively ground driven, double longed and long reined all her life, had dragged logs and other stuff from the horn of my western saddle, etc. and is a fairly sensible quiet horse. I hesitated to post here because I don’t know doodly squat about real driving, don’t own a real harness and didn’t want you guys all snickering at me.
but heck, snicker away!
http://images.yuku.com/image/pjpeg/5c23620014302b856dc4c5c7014c0ce368e02e33.jpg
Sum total of my driving experience was driving the hay wagon, driving the big sleigh for sleigh rides and driving the stone boat when we cleaned the 30 horse barn I used to work at 40 years ago…
CoL, not your fault. look at the original post dates 
after reading the responses to this thread i realized that while a cool idea, it inst going to help me right now… so i was looking for ideas beyond hand raking.
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