Starting a driving horse.

We start our miniatures to drive at about 2 or 2.5, but the starting stages are done completely in long lines and without the cart attached. There are many different starting points.

Relaxation is key. This could require different things from different horses. Desensitizing is huge for some, and not for others. If you look back on this blog, you will see some horses that needed tons of desensitizing.

One is merely to get the horse moving. Your horse must listen to your cues and when you ask for acceleration, he must be able to get up and go. And, when your horse accelerates, you want it to do this at the trot. If they break into a gallop, it is not a catastrophe, but I break it back down. I use many tools for accomplishing this. I do this training on the lunge line, in the round pen and in the cart. You have to be able to get good forward movement from your mouth cues and whip cues alone with a driving horse. In this goal is also the requirement that the horse is working in a relaxed manner. He cannot be scared of the whip. The whip is going to be your and his friend because you don’t have your legs or weight to cue. Make sure your horse is comfortable with the whip tapping his body or stroking him. You don’t want speed at the cost of fear in the horse. You want to see a relaxed horse willing to stride out. This takes time to develop and I work on this as I am working on other goals.

Another goal is suppleness. You want your horse to easily give to the right and left at the touch of your direct rein. To begin, I ask for just a lot of turning in the arena with no care where we go. As soon as the horse gives. I release the rein. Next. I start on the rail, asking for the head to turn to the outside. Sometimes this makes the body of the horse, especially the hindquarters swing to the inside. Thus, I will use my friend, the whip, as a barrier on the inside to communicate that I want them going straight down the rail while I ask for their head to turn each direction. The fence railing is also a good friend in the beginning. You want all of these exercises to be done without that aide eventually, but it helps immensely at the start.

Once, I get the horse bending left and right, I start to ask for shoulder movement. This is done in the corners of the arena. As I approach each corner, I ask the head to turn to the outside or to the rail. I then use my inside rein to ask for the shoulders to move towards the inside while the head keeps its position towards the outside. I call this counterbending. I want our horses to do this well and do it repeatedly until they will counter bend without the support of the rail and until they will do a complete circle counter bent. I work this on the ground and in the cart. Once they have this drill well accomplished at the walk, I start asking it at the trot. I do this in the cart and out of the cart. Eventually, that inside rein is key to asking the horse to raise its withers/shoulders. Some of this is shown in this video https://youtu.be/OzIYx1yowds There are a few big holes in this video. One is that I fail to explain how bending does not mean watching to see if their nose turns, but it means watching their withers/shoulder and asking for a rise in that area. I need to make another video that shows this.

Work also on softness on the bit. This is going to be crucial to developing a half halt. I start with doing a complete halt, backing up while keeping the horse in frame. I do not release, but ask for him to start again with his weight back. I don’t release until he starts with his weight on his hindquarters. This is done first in long lines, but it later is transferred to the cart. Later, while I am driving, I will ask for the horse to move forward, but the whole time, I am asking for softness on the bit. The horse having no where to go with his energy, goes up with it rather than faster.

Most driving horses are going to be at their best when their poll is the highest point as you can see in this top horse on the diagram. The stages to reach that level are down below. This is not my drawing, but has some good ideas to it.