I have a pair of Welshes that are roughly the same size. One is a sensitive, reactive pony that came out of a pair but has lots of experience. The other is a plain, but steady campaigner and may or may not have been driven in a pair. I have a carriage with a pole and we are toying with the idea of seeing if they would work together. We will have a trainer to help, but I would like to know what you do as far as ground driving to get them used to the idea. My husband and I have only driven pairs a few times and we will need some instruction too. I figure tandem is even more difficult, right?
Yes, tandem is trickier as you have to think further ahead than your leader AND you have 4 reins instead of 2. I have seen pairs ground driven, I have done a little using my leader four in hand reins since your shorter pair/wheeler reins will be too short.
What exactly do you want to achieve ground driving them? To see if they like it? then go ahead and driven them around the perimeter of your ring. But its not going to be the same as sitting behind them on the carriage. you have to take into consideration the coupling rein length, (the inside rein for the pair) since you will be on the ground along side instead of behind them.
I am wild and crazy and would just hitchem’ and go. Have grounds people to help with heading, adjusting coupling rein, etc. And have some fun with it. !
Yes, tandem is trickier as you have to think further ahead than your leader AND you have 4 reins instead of 2. I have seen pairs ground driven, I have done a little using my leader four in hand reins since your shorter pair/wheeler reins will be too short.
What exactly do you want to achieve ground driving them? To see if they like it? then go ahead and driven them around the perimeter of your ring. But its not going to be the same as sitting behind them on the carriage. you have to take into consideration the coupling rein length, (the inside rein for the pair) since you will be on the ground along side instead of behind them.
I am wild and crazy and would just hitchem’ and go. Have grounds people to help with heading, adjusting coupling rein, etc. And have some fun with it. !
If you have a trainer, perhaps they have a pony experienced in Pairs, that they could hook each of yours with to see how they go. Experienced pony won’t be reactive, knows directions and can PROBABLY pull the whole vehicle himself while your pony is still going “WHAT IS HAPPENING??” Putting Trainer pony with your experienced sensitive pony, would be a review of Pair work, so he is ready to go back to work in Pairs.
You would quickly see if your reliable pony has any Pair experience to go with the more sensitive one that does know Pair work.
I don’t think I would do much ground driving of the Pair, it is just so much easier to do things right from the seat of a vehicle. Even with the ponies, I see so MANY folks hanging on their mouths when ground driving. Driver can’t see because they are behind and WORKING to keep up with the animals. No reward from the reins often gets the animals geeked, so things are even less smooth.
I WILL RECOMMEND STRONGLY, that you tie down the evener of your vehicle. This is with using the Trainer’s pony and then your own ponies as a Pair. These animals are NOT used to working together, will NOT respond the same, so starting will be rough. Evener moving will jerk one or the other in an unequal start, making bad even worse. Tied down, the evener is changed to just singletrees, one pony can’t pull on the other one if they start badly. Any pulling just moves the vehicle itself. Pulls more like a cart this way with singletrees only, but vehicle is GOING to move forward, whichever one does the pulling. So the slow starter just has to catch up!!
We ALWAYS tie the evener down when starting new horses in a Pair, or with two animals in a new Pair, so neither equine get surprised with the pull of the evener. You sure don’t want the get them jerking around like a see-saw and not moving off at all!! Really hard to work out of, to progress to an even start that experienced Pairs show you. May take quite a while to achieve that smooth and even stepping off of the Pair, so you can then untie the evener and work on them to keep their traces tight while working together.
You will ALWAYS have one lazy and one eager horse in a Pair. You can put two lazies together and one will out-lazy the other. Two eager horses together will turn one of them into the “lazy” one. Work on the lazy appearing one to keep up with the other, and Eager will usually calm down. He just feels picked on because he is trying so hard to do all the work! Get Lazy working, and Eager quits being a problem!! Pole end points at the lazy one, so having pole straight means getting Lazy doing his job.
My pairs have been Section A and Section B, I’ve always started a new pair, or new entry into a pair, by ponying them down the road together - one ridden, one led. They learned to trot together, go at the same tempo and gait, and learned to tolerate one another with me right there (on top of one) to adjust them either verbally or with reins/rope.
Lots of single driving in the carriage, regulating the pace so that they learned to go at a pace that would work best for both. I aimed for solid, steady, patience, and relaxation. Smooth transitions from halt to walk to trot, and back again.
Putting them together in the pairs vehicle always ends up being a non-event. By then they were so tuned to each other from ponying down the road, and also by miles of quiet driving the singles carriage.
And yes, tandem is more difficult - first get the hang of directing a free moving lead pony from the back of a wheel pony so that you learn to manage two sets of reins, then add the carriage into the mix.
Update
Well we finally got together with our trainer and hitched the ponies. We only had a cob sized harness so we knotted and jerry rigged things together. Well lo and behold it went smoothly. They had to work out starting together and the more experienced pair pony graciously allowed his partner to do most of the work, but they found what worked. Now I need a harness. Yeah, more stuff to buy.
Congrats on the success! Pictures, please!!!
Well done! Kind of fits hand in hand with that need to spend money, doesn’t it? 
