Am I the only person who has not seen this lovely video? Husband said I don’t watch enough football!
Mike Matson posted the link on Off Course,
Saw it! Lovely beasts. Are they quarter horses? I was interested to see them driven in Wilson snaffles. Would that be more traditional for western-type turn-outs, or do you think that’s just what works for the team?
One of the Wells Fargo traveling hitches visited our town and husband went to see them. He said they appear to be QH and TB mixes, chosen to match in size and color. He talked to the Driver about rein handling, how they did things with this set of horses and a stage coach. Very interesting, with quite a few differences between formal Coaching expectation and how Stage Coach is set up, with regard to attached horses and driving them down the road.
I expect that some kind of snaffle was used in “common draft harness” found beyond the Ohio type lands out west all those many years ago. Easy to find snaffles, often came with a harness, and working horses just were “worked” much differently than Eastern horses. Lots of little to no contact on the reins in all the driving, riding horses, because of the hours and miles put in daily. Way too tiring to go collected or in a frame for the hours of use. Hard on rider or Driver “holding up the horses” with tight rein holds during use. Stage Coach rocking motion is almost constant when moving at any speed, so rein holds are relaxed, no contact in most cases where you are not asking horses to do something. Easier on the Driver with those heavy reins, untrained mouths, though horses in the Teams were voice trained to commands.
Going thru old Midwest barns, out West tack rooms, you almost never see big curb bits, that would be used for driving. Everything is some variation of broken mouthpieces. And what old curb bits you might find, are usually narrow, would not fit a large horse and are a ridden horse style bit. Even now, you pretty much only see the curb bits on show hitch horses, not much on working hitch horses.
Those “farm” animals are still often only voice trained, hardly use the reins to their snaffle bits in their daily jobs. Driver and horses develop a routine, have a working relationship, in doing the same jobs daily, horses are used differently than what other folk do with their animals. Scares me with horses moving and no hands on the reins!! Daily use, getting horses TIRED, makes them have a different mindset than horse who only comes out a couple times a week for an hour or two!!
I expect the Wells Fargo horses get used pretty regular, worked enough daily to get those FIT animals tired and be quite willing to respond well with light rein handling to the snaffle bits. They are more voice trained because the Stage Coach doesn’t allow driving with constant contract of the reins. Lovely turnout in person, if you hear about them coming to a place near you. Well worth the time to go see them up close.
I work for WF in which I had a chance to spend a day with the stagecoach and horses. We have several of these coachs around the country including one we customized and sent over to London to be used in a parade (we borrowed the horses).
The horses are either quarter horses, TB or appendix. In fact we have a team that is all OTTB which I was impressed to see WF getting involved with retired race horses.
Thanks for the horse information! They did look “breedy” to me, so figured the TB wasn’t far back. Interesting to hear of them using the retired race horses, but perhaps the Stage Coach work is not so confining as Carriage horse work. Probably helps if they get horses used often, even a bit tired, regularly going out driving the Stage Coach. Doing things like cantering down the road in the commercial!! So COOL to watch.
Tell your employers that us folks out in the sticks, really enjoy the horses and Stage Coach when they visit in our area!! Local horse folks talked about that visit here for quite a while. So thanks for sending them out for appearances.
Thanks for all the great info!
Thanks for posting the link. I, too, started a thread but I’m not able to attach anything to my posts.
I love the whole look of the horses and wagon (coach?). And the horses snacking on the snowmen noses is beyond adorable. 
