Driving Class Gone Wrong

Oh jeesh! Frodo's first driving classes are on April 4th... I really shouldn't have watched that!!!
I am surprised the people in the ring didn't automatically go to the center and unhook their horses. I don't drive and that would be my first instinct.
On a different note... Arabs sure do have stamina, don't they? :laugh1 (They look Arab anyway) One horse's tail was missing... Are they fake tails?

Wow, I'm amazed nobody got badly hurt :shock:

Hindsight is a wonderful thing !!

I would have unhooked and gotten out the other horses and in this instance would not have tried to catch the horse at all...I would have let it run its course and slow down on it's own, the trouble is in this instance the horse was also running from the waving arms it kept seeing on the people trying to catch it.

I drove for many years and it's scary when you have one run away with you !! ;)

scary! Glad to know that no one or no horse was injured badly.

I'm planning on finishing my haffy mare to cart this spring...maybe I shouldn't have watched that either...she can gallop with the best of 'em (although, her portly self tires a bit sooner...but she does have some stamina for a porky pony!)

I have actually just started driving Bertie, who has been "working" in harness now all winter.
I've never actually had a horse in blinkers, but this is a good reason why the training should be done without up to the point at which the horse actually [i]needs[/i] them (which I have to say has never happened to me!!)
Come to think of it, and I've watched this video a few times now, just [i]training[/i]the horse at all probably would have worked as well!
I have had a few hairy moments, and Bertie's latest trick is pretending he is Bokephalous, which is fine by me, I'd rather get all this out of his system now, in the filed, than out on the road.
And, again, this seems to be a major weakness with "show horses"....just driving or riding round a show ring is [i]not[/i] "training", and although I intend to show Bertie in harness, that will not happen until he is a "finished"driving horse...I had hoped to put him in a class this Spring, but have realised this is putting the cart before the horse (Ha Ha :booty ) and he shall not now be showing til the Autumn (maybe) or possibly next year...
I have never trained a horse for harness with the show ring in mind before, so I got a little carried away, I am afraid, so I had a good talk to myself and became a lot more sensible!!
The other thing is, having got the rules changed so I could show a three year old, I am fast coming to the conclusion that three actually [i]is[/i] too young, after all!!

I've never particularly liked the idea of blinkers, though I understand the historical uses and it's traditional for showing. But I think they restrict the horse's vision too much, especially in a show ring like this - they already have a blind spot right in front, you're cutting off nearly their entire field of vision

My point entirely and the historical thing??
Baloney!!
People make up reasons to justify why they do something that has become a lazy habit, basically, like the US reasons for using a check rein, which of course is not used at all in Europe!!
It just takes longer to train a horse that is not half blind.....

what's a check rein? i'm ignorant, forgive me.
and I drove splash with blinkers simply because the el cheapo nylon harness I got came with blinkers, lol! I guess I really could have just bought another birdle to use with it, but...that would have been too intelligent.

[quote="Maigray"]I've never particularly liked the idea of blinkers, though I understand the historical uses and it's traditional for showing. But I think they restrict the horse's vision too much, especially in a show ring like this - they already have a blind spot right in front, you're cutting off nearly their entire field of vision[/quote]

I had the exact same thought while watching that video. With blinkers on it cuts out so much of there vision that the horse couldn't figure out what was going.

I think the chestnut most of the damage he did because he couldn't see!

I was always taught the historical use of blinkers for carriage horses was to actually keep them from spooking at all the things around them. Back when horses were the main form of locomotion, on tiny cobblestoned, crowded streets, in cities with all sorts of things running around underfoot, it might have seemed a better idea to keep your horse half blind to all the chaos. The thought being they would focus on the driver to the exclusion of all the other stimulus around them. I can kind of understand..but...I guess it comes down to training and preference. Back in the day, horses were the cars, and most horses spent more time doing that than anything else. They had to be solid.

Blinkers were not used on carriage horses until mail coaches became a possibility and that was....well, when the roads got made up to the point where coaches were able to be used on them.
At this time, roughly I am guessing, in the 1600 (late) to 1700s (progressively) the mail companies were responsible for the keeping of the roads, which is why you had to pay a toll if you were in a non-mail vehicle.
The mail companies put their crest on the carriages, the harnesses etc...part of which were the blinkers used on the rear (wheelers) to prevent the reins running out to the leaders rubbing their eyes.
The mail companies wanted the harness etc to look really "spiffy" so that, coupled with the fact that some stop overs only switched the wheelers and the leaders placings and it is hard to work a horse one minute in blinkers and the next out of them, meant it really was easier all round to have all four in blinkers.
They had tried the wheelers in one blinker (outside as this is the side the reins of a four in hand come from the lead to the wheel) but they pulled lopsided, hence two blinkers each on the wheel horses.
Before this cart horses rarely if ever wore blinkers...you do not get four in hand Clydesdales...well, you did not when they were really being worked, anyway :lol:
You can see early blinkers being illustrated in Chaucer period pictures, where they were just as likely to be on a "Palfrey" (ladies riding horse, dead quiet) as they were to be on a cart horse, and of course the Turks used them on Barb stallions (although the Arabs did not and they did not geld either, and no-one in the middle east does nowadays and NO-ONE gelds there even now!!)

Whatever the hype, that, as far as I can reasonably ascertain, is the truth.
I think there was also an element that a half blind horse tends to be easier to control, and horses that were not suited to driving were being used for driving in the days before the car.
If you read Black Beauty's thoughts on blinkers you can see why I do not consider them necessary.
When I find a horse that just [i]has[/i] to be driven, and cannot be driven without blinkers, I will let you know!!
But it hasn't happened yet so don't hold your breath! :rofl

Krickette a check rein is a rein that goes from the saddle of the harness up over the horses head and down to the bit, it's primary use seems to be to torture the horse.......
(OK I'm ducking now!! ;) )

that is just terrible

Rabbit, Thank so much for posting the history of the blinkers. I was going to ask but you beat me to it!

Daylene

Was that a cowboy with a rope at the end?

Very amazing, they did IMO all they could ... that was flight instinct gone wild , complete fear.

Absolutely...I think they handled it pretty well, maybe a bit slow to get the other horses out, but the handlers of those horse were pretty quick to get their animals out of harness, which was brilliant!
Bertie had a "wobbly" the other day and believe me, even with only 32" of horse power panicking, it is hard to stay in control...[i]and[/i] I was alone in the field, no other horses.....
Word of warning...when driving a young, green horse, it is best [i]not[/i] to have two Dobes with bells on their collars and a tendency to "play" roughly all over the field, loose with you!!
Bert has grown up with these dogs, he has NO fear of them (mostly he tries to trample them!!) but he still turned back into a flight animal when he was surprised by them hurtling past him.Then he forgot he had the cart behind him and panicked again when he remembered!!
Heart in mouth time, one reason that I always train young horses, even 32" ones, in a curb action bit!!
We did stop, and we did sort it out, but it was touch and go for a few minutes, and those little things can [i]really[/i] shift when they want to!!! x_x

Hey Fizz, any chance you could point out to me a reference for your version of how blinkers came to be?

I'm not even sure where I read it, it was so long ago...I have a feeling it was a combination of places, and not the Internet, unfortunately...it could even have been one of the four in hand drivers I knew..possibly George Bowman???
Sorry, your memory does [i]not[/i]improve with age!!

One of the grooms/showpersons who worked for the barn the horses came from posted about the incident - post no. 69 by 2good2no.

http://forums.ablackhorse.com/index.php…" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

when we started working on driving and such with my haffy, we decided early on--no blinkers. We felt that she didn't need them and would be more nervous with them on than without. She handles things very well, so long as she has her full range of vision..haha. She was an untouched 8 year old when I got her, so...we figure might as well make it as easy as possible with her, and I'd rather have a horse have it's full range of vision while I'm driving than not.