This was a Country Pleasure Driving class. I had a canter break when I was learning to drive years ago, but I have never seen anything like this before – thank goodness. Even more scary thinking of the days of all the horse traffic in city streets.
I feel like I’ve seen few of this type of vid… :eek:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fua-q94WxtA
That is very old video, has been posted on here several times. Lots of things done wrong in how they managed the situation. Horse who started things was said to be unhurt, was driven and shown successfully after this show. He even got Champion ribbons.
Not sure the exact titles of past posts, maybe Driving Wreck would bring up those old thread.
Look and learn what NOT to do in such a situation to be safe.
See, this is why I don’t pleasure drive. People don’t seem to understand that driving is inherently dangerous. You have the lines and your voice. Instead of the multiple aids available to a rider. This class was full of young, crazy horses pulling carts only slightly heavier than a racing sulky with no brakes and older drivers who don’t have the strength to have a prayer of intervening when things go wrong. And while i understand the idea of a kick strap being anathema to a “pleasure horse” and therefore prohibited…I know someone who ended up in the hospital after their 20-something gelding who had won multiple state championships got stung in the sheath by a wasp while driving to visit a neighbor on a gorgeous summer evening. It’s not a risk I’m willing to take with my head in easy double barrel range of a shod horse.
My grandfather was a NYC police officer. He got his foot crushed trying to stop a runaway cart horse in the late 1950’s/early 1960’s. My father’s recollection is that the driver had been thrown from the vehicle and killed. So, it happened. But still, I have the impression that bad runaways weren’t as common as you’d think. Those horses worked a full day pulling heavy stuff. They weren’t apt to expend extra energy unless something really scared the bejeeburs out of them.
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When I was learning to drive & took a clinic with Muffy Seaton (who has tons of Driving Cred - shown in England w/multiples, etc) - during a break I asked how to stop a runaway.
I was expecting some version of a rider’s pulley rein or ???
Her answer: “Aim for something solid”
@Wanderosa this is why I shudder when I hear people say that when they can no longer ride, they will drive.
As if subtracting aids - legs, seat - will somehow make it safer. :no: NOT!
@Rackonteur I ask my mini to canter on occasion, so if he breaks it’s not a Freakout.
My original trainer taught me this & I’ve found it useful.
Besides, when we do Cones (& someday Marathon) it’s not only allowed, but necessary.
We do Pleasure classes along with trail drives & CT.
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This video is like the 52 free Thoroughbreds.
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Nah uh. This video doesn’t have papers.
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Yup. Something solid or enough room to run them and run them some more.
There’s a section in Little House on the Prairie where Laura Ingells Wilder describes her future husband, Almanzo, training up a couple spectacular colts that no one else wanted to touch because they were so crazy. (He apparently really was a gifted horse trainer from what I’ve read about their lives together.) Basically, he would let them run in a massive circle until they tired out. The trick was making the circle broad enough not to tip the vehicle.
I was lucky enough to get to meet and have a long conversation with Jim Barnett before he died about 10 years ago. He’d grown up working a 600 acre farm in SW VA and was in charge of training the Cassion horses for Arlington National Cemetary and the soldiers who worked them for many years. Most of the horses were donated by private individuals as tax write offs. So, they got some “exciting” horses that they had to train. He paired one such horse with a steady older horse to train. The young horse bolted numerous times and the old horse would have to run to keep up because they were hitched together. After several incidents the old horse took it upon himself to fix the problem. He steered his nutty partner towards a huge tree and cut to one side, forcing the young horse to cut to the other. The harness running back and forth between them and the cart tongue slammed into the tree and the impact threw the young horse off his feet. He never bolted again after that, Jim said. Lol.
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snort
I guess that answers my question, “is this that idiotic video that someone helpfully brings up any time you mention you drive?”
Why yes, yes it is. Color me surprised.
@2DogsFarm that sounds 100% like Muffy! 
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Full disclosure, this is what I have always said (I just returned to driving earlier than that timeline).
I think if they scare you with their current riding choices and skills, that will not improve if they lose critical aids and all emergency control measures are eliminated or drastically changed!
(but I know what you mean 
)
My farrier in Colorado told me his father trained horses for Roman-style chariot races. His method was to hitch the untrained horse with a trained horse, and let the trained horse do all the training work. Occasionally he would train one as a single, and my farrier told me his job when he was a teenager was to jump at the bolting horse and make it stop. Then he went on to be a bronc rider on the rodeo circuit. I don’t think he had any unbroken bones. But he sure was a nice guy, my horses loved him, and he was a good farrier.
Rebecca
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I do think most ADS shows have a higher standard in expectations of the horse than breed shows, which is where the video was filmed. Of course there are always a few who lack knowledge and skill that will show up. So observe others driving around you, same as you would in any riding situation. Be wary, give each other room.
Entering a Pleasure Driving class is your choice, don’t if it bothers you. Husband riding with Jr driver daughter, spoke to driver beside them as her horse continued acting badly in lineup. He said he would cut the hors’s throat if it reared and landed on our horse! Guess she believed him, moved FAR away! Stayed away from them in another class, then loaded and went home. Ill trained, poorly driven, not sure if Judge told her to leave for safety.
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Yup, aim for something that will snag your axle if a wall or other solid thing isn’t available.
:no: I’d think snagging an axle would guarantee tipping a cart & probably a carriage as well.
Then out goes driver & you have a loose horse attached to a projectile.
I think you can see this happen - more than once - in that original video.
I’d think it would be better to circle LARGE & hope to decrease speed that way.
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Why anyone would want to drive a crazy horse is beyond me. I worked on an Arabian breeding farm and there was one horse out of 30 with a calm enough temperament for driving. Add in stalling them to get those long tails, and having a hot, excitable horse…that’s an accident waiting to happen.
I believe horses should be ridden before ever being hooked to a cart- see what temperament you have, and what their reaction is if frightened.
I’ve driven saddlebreds and while they are hot and forward, they aren’t nearly as spooky as arabians. Even being stalled full time. They had a youngster and despite it being his first show, he was as calm as a cucumber.
I’m tempted to train my foxtrotter to drive. She is more whoa then go, and fairly unflappable. After watching the combined driving competition, you need a horse that stops dead if that cart flips. One of the four in hand carts flipped, and you could see the quality of training. Those horses didn’t move a muscle.
This is why Clydesdale horses are good! Totally different reaction then those arabians.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FUt1c_2v0fw
I will take the ugliest horse in the barn, over a fancy Arabian that is going to ditch its rider over an invisible Pokemon.
@4horses there’s a big difference between crazy & hot.
I’ve been (as Homer Simpson would say) edjumicated by my neighbors - 3rd generation Hackney breeders/trainers.
Do their ponies always look like they’ve just seen a ghost? :eek: Check.
I have my own Hackney Pony - gotten as a companion - & he will be 18 on March 10. Still acts like a yearling :rolleyes:
OTOH:
I’ve seen one of neighbor’s older ponies take a young girl who had not driven for over 2yrs into the ring at County Fair where the arena has a circus atmosphere - complete with bright lights, crowded, noisy metal bleachers & surrounded by the food vendors making varied smells & noises.
Pony looked like the typical H-bomb - knees to chin, nostrils flared, going at warpspeed - but girl smiled through the class & came out saying what fun she had. And took 2nd (of 5).
Another friend has an Arab mare she has driven at Fair for years.
Just last year a competitor who drives her large Haffie - a breed not known for flightiness - every year had a bad crash in the ring during a class - she was uninjured, horse was uninjured, but her brand-new cart was toast.:dead:
Crazy is not breed-specific.
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Oh goodness yes, yes, yes. A circle, anything to regain control. Snagging an axle would be done in the event of a total dead run away where nothing else has worked. Nothing more than a choice between trying to stop the carriage/cart that way or entering say a road as a run away. There are risk either way.
A good Hackney is a brave small War Horse. Love seeing a good one doing it’s job. In preparation for my donkey’s first true carriage driving show last year I entered her in a local Open show two weeks before. The driving class was for large ponies so it was filled with Hackneys. The reason I was there was to introduce her to being in an arena with other horses because she had only done one CT- no one in the ring with her. All went well in our schooling show until the announcer called for a “STRONG TROT”. The RPM’s on those Hackneys hit 3800 ASAP while we were cruising at our strong trot RPM of about 1800. My donkey could hear the thunder coming up behind her so she scooted over to the rail- kinda like tightening your butt cheeks. 
As they passed us she forked her ears on them seeming to be confused about their haste. I still laugh about that class. Gosh those Hackneys were stunning, seriously and they were good sports about having a “road bump guest” in the class.
A friend has a been there, done that honest to God ranch horse. He’s good to try anything on. One day in my FB feed she had a series of photos of her driving him for the first time. As in no ground driving- just hooked him up and went down the road…in an open bridle no less!! I was impressed with the horse though a part of me feared for her life. I asked her about the open bridle and she had no idea that blinders would be an option. LOL, lucky girl.
My Hackney pony was my first driving horse. He was insane, very hot in harness but completely sweet tempered on the ground. My trainer thought I was nuts (“Didn’t I teach you ANYTHING???”) but you know what? He never injured himself nor me. He trashed my cart tires once, bolting into a field full of thorns, but we were fine (other than me having to ground drive him all the way home on two flat tires). He was already pretty old when I got him (22) but he was still an Energizer bunny. It was the most fun I’ve ever had with any horse. I miss him every day.
Rebecca
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This audience is much better behaved and presumably knowledgeable too.
I can’t imagine why a true horse person would not pick brains over beauty when it comes to choosing a horse. (Most of us know to do it with other people too, as well as with cats and dogs.)
