Training Test

It's Hard to Drive Straight

It's hard to drive straight and accurately.

 These tracks down the centerline (yellow) show the difficulty a new driver had in:

1. finding the centerline
2. driving straight. 

And she was trying *really* hard to do it right.

The white arrows indicate the widest tracks in her attempts. If you look carefully you can see she was able to generally hone in on X but getting there and leaving there were harder.

This represents about 4 attempts at Training level 1 and 4 at Training Level 2. We'd expect this to improve with more practice BUT......

I have noticed in this ring after 2 weeks of drivers practicing and trying HARD to drive straight, there is a pretty wide variation down this centerline.

A judge sitting at C has an easy job of assessing accuracy: if a 10 is perfectly straight, then anything less than perfectly straight has to be something less than 10. 

So, how is it that this man can 'drive' so straight? Would he get a 10? 

Practice, practice, practice!

All Holes Are Not Created Equal

Harness Holes

These holes in the leather were originally punched round. 

Over time they have molded and shaped to the tongue 

on the buckle as it lies at an angle in the hole. 

Oval holes punched in synthetic material allowing the buckle tongue 

to lie in the strap without wearing and tear in the hole as it is being used under pressure.

Note in the two photos above: the end of the buckle tongue is made 

by the buckle manufacturer by flattening the round tongue slightly. 

As a consequence, that makes these tongues a little fatter in width

 and actually *wider* than the punched hole it has to repeatedly go thru.

 Not all buckle tongues are made this way. Look closely when you buy!

This is the end result of using round holes in synthetic strapping. 

This is ugly but actually serviceably strong because the strength of the strap comes 

from the inner nylon core strapping not the outer finish covering. 

Had the holes been oval punched originally as in the shot above, t

his would look a LOT better over time.

Teaching Tidbits

Teaching Tidbits

I love taking a driving lesson. I love auditing lessons for either riding or driving or just about anything having to do with horses. I love listening to equine professionals...vets, dentists, chiropractors, acupuncturists...who explain the how's and why's of what they are doing with a horse.  I ALWAYS learn something I didn't know or have something I thought I understood confirmed by someone more knowledgeable than myself.

And that something doesn't have to be, and usually isn't, a long involved body of knowledge or a long and complicated explanation or demonstration of technique. It's almost always a boiled down tidbit that sticks with me forever.

If I take an hour long lesson in driving and I get one valuable tidbit, it was worth the price. Why? Because I'll use it forever and on every horse I work with from then on.

Two tidbits I received in the last 2 weeks;

From Bill Lower, top notch carriage driver: 
Never be sloppy on your corners.


 A sample of Bill's style

Sounds simple and obvious enough but one thing a lesson with Bill is so good for is not the big gross techniques of driving but the tiny ones that dot the I 's and cross the T's and separate  good from great and are SO important and critical to get right for every horse if you want to get the most out of their performance.

What he was talking about is to ALWAYS set your horse up in advance for a trun...well, not "a turn" but *EVERY* turn...every time. Don't get sloppy. And it is SO easy to get a little sloppy and be satisfied with 'good enough'. It will pay huge dividends in Combined Driving Obstacles and Cones and Dressage and just everyday driving.

How often have you heard it's not always the shortest route that's faster? It's the smooth route that allows your horse to maintain his balance and speed that ends up with the fastest time. Have you ever watched a good driver through a CDE Obstacle and they don't LOOK like they are going that fast but you check their time and wow, is it low? That's the well prepared, smooth, balanced, efficient and economical route getting the job done.

Your horse can not be balanced and fast on turns unless he is prepared in advance. If you get sloppy, your times will suffer and your horse will suffer physically and mentally. Prepare him in advance so he trusts you just that much more and his anxiety level will be reduced and his joints and muscles will be ready for the change of direction and all the forces associated with it.

Thank you, Bill!

From Dr. Anne Christopherson, endurance & combined driving veterinarian: 
Most people do not spend enough time walking their horses. 

Walking and walking and walking is something I have always instinctively known and generally believed was very good for my horses. Fortunately, I like to walk them. IT doesn't bore me. It was nice to have my sense confirmed by someone who is such an expert...genius...in the field of conditioning and soundness as Dr. Anne.

It is so easy to cut the walking short. If you are involved with galloping breed or trotting breed, it is so tempting to get right to those gaits because your horses like them and it is easy for them. It's what they WANT to do. BUT..... there is probably nothing worse than riding or driving a horse that does not like to walk. And it is one of at least two things you can not MAKE a horse do: You can't make a horse stand still and you can't make a horse walk. You can only create a situation where they *want* to walk or stand.

Most people do not walk their horses long enough or often enough to even experience all that walking does for the horse. They never get to experience the long, swinging, relaxed, efficient, ground covering ,unhurried, self carriage walk. They get satisfied with good enough. It's a walk...it has four beats. It's not trotting. ....Oh, but there's so much more.

The horse that LIKES to walk (that's different from a horse that walks because he doesn't like to trot, btw) ..the horse that understands that a good efficient walk is just the way the World works, will be healthier mentally and physically for a longer time.

Thank you, Dr. Anne!

Horses Hiding Pain to Survive

Horses Hiding Pain To Survive

Veterinary Anaesthesiologist, Thijs van Loon, PhD, of Utrecht University in Utrecht, the Netherlands:

“The difficulty with evaluating pain in horses is that they cannot tell us how much pain they’re in or where it hurts. And that’s complicated by the fact that horses are prey animals, and they will naturally tend to hide their level of pain as a survival mechanism.”

Sandbox lesson #2

Sandbox Lesson #2

Follow the wheeltracks starting from the green arrows. Redline is the Center Line thru X (green) down to C, a little foreshortened just due to the illusions of the camera. 

At the green arrows, the turnout is not badly positioned to tack down the Center Line (red line) However, the driver loses concentration and starts watching the horse instead of keeping the "eye on the prize"...keeping C between the horse's ears. The driver loses the way and allows the horse drift to the left. 

When they look up as they halt at X, the horse is off the Center Line and more importantly, the horse is off balance due to the last second correction attempt to get back on the Center Line...TOO LATE! 

As a consequence, the rein back is decidedly not straight. Follow the wheel tracks back from the green dots. The vehicle is not tracking straight back and if we were able to examine the hoof prints of the horse reining back, they would not be straight back either.

The vehicle now is starting forward even more off the Center Line. Walking forward from the last step in the rein back, the driver attempts to steer back to the center line but everything is so cockeyed and out of balance by then that they over do it and compound their error by over compensating and now drive to the right of the Center Line before halting at G. 

This is a prime example of why accuracy is so important. It is reminiscent of the Compulsory Figures that we used to see in the Olympic skating events back in the 50's and 60's: One small error would cause a cascade of subsequent errors that echo in the attempts to rectify that initial mistake. So it is with horses! Balance is your friend.

As my good friend, Larry Poulin, says : "Don't give up the easy points! "  You are given a map...it shows you where to be....so.... Be there!  Use the real estate you are given. There's little excuse  to be inaccurate. Points are easily taken off for inaccuracy....any judge can see it.

Cones & The Courage to Drive to the Outside

Hoof Prints and Wheel Track

I often hear instructions given to drivers who are learning to drive cones: "Get straight before you go through." That strategy will indeed position you to drive your horse through the middle of the cones gate if you have a straight approach to begin with. The problem is most approaches to cones gates in competition begin on turns, not straightaways. The downside to that strategy is that it often will require you to drive a route that is much longer than actually necessary.

Since your time on course is a not only a measure of how fast you are traveling through space (speed) but how much time it takes to travel the distance around the course, increasing the distance travelled will increase your time on course. TIME = SPEED X DISTANCE

Like the jockey, Calvin Borel, who says his secret to winning races is to "Take the shortest route around the track.", if you can remove strides between gates, your time on course will be faster. Slower horses can often beat faster horses simply by taking a more efficient path thru the cones. Remove one stride between each of 20 gates (that's 20 strides!) and your time on course will be several seconds faster....often enough to beat the competition. One of my mottos is: "It's all about the route."

Study this photo. The green dots show the horse's hoof prints as he travels a turning route to approach the gate. (He is travelling away from the viewer) Look where his feet are as he approaches this gate. Imagine where the horse's head must be when his front feet get to the cones gate.  Aim your horse for the middle here and you will nail the inside cone every time. 

My advice: 

1. Practice, practice, practice with tight clearances. Who cares if you hit a few at home? In fact, the only way you will learn where your wheels are on the ground is to hit some cones. If you practice with 10 cms. clearance and make it thru 80% of the gates you have set up, you should rather quickly be able to make it thru 100% when gates are set at 30cms. in competition. 
2. Drive *some* cones every day. It doesn't need to be a lot of them. Regular practice with a few cones gates is better for you and your horse than driving a lot of cones only once a week. Set a few gates out where you can easily get to them and drive them every day to or from your day's work out.
3. Drive at an easy pace at first while practicing. Concentrate on positioning and making life easy for your horse. You want him to feel good about this game. Drive at speed as part of your work but not always at speed. It's more about creating the confidence in you and for your horse that the approach is going to stay true and ultimately going to work starting from 5 or 10 meters before the gate, especially if it on a turn.
4. As part of each practice session, use approaches to cones gates that you do not think you can make. It's fine to set up planned courses with elements you have seen in competition or might expect to see but also set cones out rather randomly and drive the easy, obvious routes first, then try driving ridiculously crazy routes and approaches that seem impossible. You will quickly be able to recognize approaches you and your horse CAN make. That will sharpen your skills for the courses set by devious course designers! And, more importantly, it will help train you to cut off unnecessary, extra strides between gates and allow you to take the shorter, smoother and more efficient routes, producing a faster time on course.
5. Aim for the OUTSIDE cone on those turning approaches. Have the courage to take your horse's front feet almost into the outside cone. You can almost put his head over that outside cone. As you can clearly see in this photo, the wheels go cleanly through the middle of the gate with a very narrow clearance.
6. Watch thru routes taken by good drivers in competition. They waste little distance between gates while at the same time maintaining a smooth route that allows their horses to remain well balanced and efficient.