The Morgan Horse Blog

Now We Are Two!
By: Ina M. Ish

You have survived raising the horse through birth to this point, you walk all over creation, you have done your best to create a mannered, calm, well behaved youngster- now what?
Well, depending on your circumstances, or desires you can actually begin to train that critter to DO SOMETHING! Not saddle work, but harness work. Or even more advanced work on the ground. A two year old is still too young to do advanced lateral ground work, but not too young to do actually harness work, provided it’s mind is settled enough of course. Work in harness or ground work is excellent for building up muscle, acquiring a good work ethic and channeling excess energy.

If you are going to do the harness routine all the way to actually hooking and driving that is great, but you will need access to another person, or have enough money to find and pay a good trainer. This can be both very spendy, and very disastrous- or very spendy and very good. Too many pro trainers tend to treat horses in ‘cookie cutter’ fashion, they do things one way and do not take into account individual horse temperaments or personalities. This can lead to great fears, confusion, resentments on the horse’s part- not to mention actual damage to the body or mind. Don’t forget a two year old is still a baby!

Say you are going to do it with the help of a friend at home- you will need a breaking cart, proper harness, a large enclosed area, a driving whip, and lots of time. It can take more than two folk to actually hook a horse to the cart, so be aware of the need for helpers and the need to proceed slowly. Do not rush into doing this by any means. Driving is much more dangerous than riding and you want to be very sure you have the basics firmly instilled. I am not trying to put anybody off from doing this, merely passing on some cautions. If you are fortunate enough to have an experienced “Whip ” ( somebody who has driven and trained even) on hand to help so much the better. A total novice person and a total green horse do not a good combination make!

A few more words of advice- do not acquire a total metal cart as a breaking cart- may be stronger, but metal is more unforgiving than wood and too many potential driving horses are killed by metal shafts driven into the ribs! A wooden cart , with a brake is most desirable- they can be found. If such is not easily found- check out harness tracks for older jog carts- they are light, and don’t allow as easy in and out access as a heavier wooden braking cart, but they are available and inexpensive. You do need a smoothish surface to use them on- forget going cross country in one! A quick release Harness is a real joy to use – consider that. Even starting with the nylon harness is o.k., provided you get fleece padding for the harness saddle, breastplate, and crupper . Fleece for the harness saddle is very important! That piece of harness carries ALL the weight of the cart and therefore to protect the young back wearing it, it must be padded- and widely! I never did like the lines that come with the nylon harness, but cotton lines are available- do not get the ones with the hand loops! They can be deadly to you if your hands get caught in a bail-out situation.

I won’t dwell on technique of harness training, there is a great deal of information available on the subject, not so much on ground work, but it to is available. I will say a bit about getting ready to do this deed!

In order to start any of this, I am assuming your horse has already been introduced to wearing harness- if not, you should start slowly to introduce it. Take your time. Not only is it new to the horse , likely it is new to you and there are miles of it to get used to handling! I suggest practicing in your house with several chairs as a ‘horse’- lay it out, learn each part by name, put it on the chairs, just as you would put it on the horse- get used to handling the sheer amount of material involved. If you develop some finesse with it, it will go easier and take less time when you actually are faced with harnessing a live animal. If you have inherited or acquired an older leather harness, check all the stitching, clean with saddle soap, and apply Lexol or another good leather conditioner. You want that equipment to be as supple as possible. When putting on Lexol ( or what-ever) use frequent small amounts rather than one heavy application. Leather dries better with the smaller, more frequent applications. Check all the buckles and connectors- make very, very sure the leather is still ‘live’ and has no dry rot at all!

Biting is very important in harness as it is under saddle. Less is more with a youngster. A simple snaffle bit – not a thin one- will do initially. If you have not bitted the horse before, then do so and lead/walk the horse around wearing the bridle with a bit. Spend some time on this step, don’t just place a bit in the horse’s mouth and attempt to hook the same session!!!! The key to harness work is taking the time to make sure the horse is comfortable with all the equipment and with the activity. If you have an older driving horse around, have someone drive it while you and the youngster watch from the rail! No kidding – horses can learn from watching!!! Some folk like to start a harness horse in an open bridle- if you are among them have helpers move that cart all around the horse you are ground-driving- in front, in back, to either side, gently bump with shafts – in other words get the horse totally used to that strange device! To it’s noise and it’s smell as well as it’s feel! You need to do this regardless of type of bridle you are going to use!

An open bridle is great, but some horses simply can’t or won’t tolerate the cart behind them when wearing one. If that is the case go to a blinker bridle – or get a blinker hood to use with your regular bridle. That works. Even if your youngster can handle the sight of a cart behind him or her, many are freaked out by it’s noise- you may even have to use ear-plugs at first! What-ever it takes to keep that horse from becoming frightened! A frightened horse in harness is very dangerous. Indeed! You can’t simply reach out and re-assure the animal, so it is worth your time to progress very slowly till the horse understands and accepts all the newness’.

Once you have actually gotten through all the beginning and critical stuff as described above it is time to ENJOY! Keep your first drives on the short side, and on familiar territory. The inviting open dirt road or lane will be there when you and the horse are ready! It isn’t going anywhere– but you are! Big pastures are fine, you don’t want to get yourself into any tight spots, and that is literal! You do want to build up muscle on the horse and install a sense of accomplishment- you want the animal to enjoy it’s work! So keep the drives short and pleasant- fun rather than drudgery!

Be lavish with deserved praise , verbal – don’t be tongue tied- when that youngster does a good job let them know it! Keep talking through all the ‘sticky’ points, offer comfort and re-assurance. You should not drive a horse all alone- take a passenger with you! Someone who can jump out and head that horse in needful situations. So someone who is also a horseperson is desired.

They say that God looks after idiots and fools, and I do know I was blessed when I first started to drive. I was in my teens and had gotten my first horse- an old half Belgian mare who was a “ride and drive” horse. In her case it was “drive and ride” she had done parades and pulled every sort of cart you can think of. I had never driven, and had never harnessed a horse- had spent months reviving an old leather harness and with the aid of a guy who had worked with the Clydesdale’s at the brewery in Scotland- we actually got my mare harnessed. Took a huge amount of time since he was used to harness with collars and hames, and this was harness with breastplate. Finally it was done and I asked Johnny what do I do now. His response ” Get in the sleigh and drive!” Duh! So I did! Not knowing any better I got into the sleigh- a NY Cutter by type- picked up the lines and said “Walk on” off the mare went, and that was my introduction to driving- on snow, in a cutter, by myself! All the things one can do wrong I did! But survived By Grace of God and the Powers that be. I soon learned that turning corners was an experience indeed- cutters ‘drift’ just like sports cars! The sparks from the patches of bare pavement are scary as all get out at first, and when they turn over well- I never moved so fast as when a huge snow plow frightened my mare and she began to climb the plowed snow on the road side. And the cutter started to turn over. I simply had to get that cutter caught and stabilized before it went completely over with the mare still hooked! So you see, disaster can happen and it is usually super fast when it does- all the more reason to have a passenger and to know your horse and what it will do in unexpected situations. Don’t drive alone!

Having said that repeatedly, I will leave you all to it, go and enjoy but remember SAFETY FIRST, for you and for your young horse!

Ina M Ish
iish@earthlink.net

Yearlings!
By: Ina M. Ish

Yearlings can fly! Did you know that? No kidding, I have had yearlings both colts and fillies clear a four foot fence from just about a total standstill. And why is that? It’s cause for their body weight , the muscles are far more than capable of providing a great deal of ‘lift’ to the critter. So, make sure your fences are tight, and it wouldn’t hurt to have a good, strong, high strand of electric on the top of them!
Aside from their airborne capability- yearlings are – plain and simple- a trip! The fillies and the colts are coping with newly arisen hormones and cycles- which in many ways makes them just like adolescent human teenagers- subject to all kinds of mood shifts, about minus zero attention span, and bizarre behavior.

I have had fillies that seem to have terrible cramps when they cycle for the first few times- manifested as colic. Oh joy. Colts seem to from time to time- coinciding with the filly/mare cycles- have air blowing from one side of their brains to the other-making them ” airheads” and that is the good stuff! If not air-heads, colts can assume that THEY are the farm’s top breeding stallion- one with few manners at that. This is the time when all those walks and all that patience, and all that instilling of the basics comes to be worth it’s weight in gold!

Yearling stage seems to be when colts especially decide to rear when leading- not all of course, but quite a few actually. This must be stopped immediately. The cure seems harsh, but having a colt or youngster dance on your head is more dramatic. I had a colt at the beginning of my horse breeding program , who decided one day he would rear as we were on a slight downhill slope leading into the pasture. Scared me near silly. After consult with a very experienced breeder- whose words of wisdom I will never forget ” YOU pick the time and place of a fight with a horse if a fight is what must happen- don’t let them do it!”- I made my plans. The next morning, wearing leather gloves, carrying a lunge whip, with a chain over the colt’s nose we set out. Now I did not routinely use a chain over the nose- so this was new to the colt indeed. Off we went to the spot where the rearing had occurred- sure enough the colt started to get ancy- so I took the whip and lightly laid it on his side and moved him over, switched sides and moved him back – did that a few times and the rearing behavior ceased! IF he had indeed gone up, I was mentally prepared to smack him a good one right across the genital area! And believe me, getting to that state of mental prep was not easy! But it was not needed , for which I was grateful. By the way, that colt never again even attempted to rear.

I have had yearlings go airborne out of fright which is a totally different thing, but always be alert and pay attention when handling yearlings- their real life experience is somewhat limited, despite your hard work, and accordingly their behavior can be unpredictable!

Now the good things you can do with the critters. You can actually begin to do things besides the walking, and grooming! You can introduce the yearling to harness- if you have it- and teach them to ground drive. I do not suggest lunge work -too easy to create muscle imbalance yet in the youngster. And no need to bit the yearling either. At the most a simple hackamore is plenty- most often you don’t even need that if “Whoa” is already instilled in the yearling. The long lines attached to the halter will suffice. If you don’t have harness you will need as a minimum a surcingle with rings – a very inexpensive biting rig will do- made out of fabric, not leather.. Mind you, forget all the doohickeys for things like setting heads!! Just forget them…That of course applies to anything resembling a Check rein- or a running martingale. Or a tie down!

Having gotten the yearling used to wearing the equipment, which is not hard to do at all, and doesn’t take but a few times of slowly putting it on – do not simply slam it onto the back of the horse! Instead, first let the horse see it and smell it, do this introduction on both sides of the head, left and right eye must be able to see the thing! Gently lift it over the wither and slide it into place.. Wouldn’t hurt to do this both from the left and the right side of the horse- you do have to teach both sides!!!

If you like you can use a crupper, keeping the backstrap just tight enough to hold the crupper in place without it sliding around and rubbing under the tail. This is an important step- putting on the crupper. Lift the tail straight up- slowly do not yank it up, and put the unbuckled crupper into position- making very, very sure no tail hair is caught under the crupper. I do not recommend those monster thick cruppers you see on the show grounds- nope a standard crupper with a piece of fleece on it does beautifully. If you have no intention of ever using the horse in harness- skip this step altogether ! An surcingle alone is fine!!

I am not about to give detailed instructions on how to ground drive a horse! But carrying a driving whip and wearing gloves is important- you want to teach the horse that the whip is a tool for guiding and cueing, not beating! The gloves will save your hands indeed. It also helps to have another person at the head of the yearling to lead it forward as you cue with the whip and give verbal “Walk On” command- you should also visualize what is going to happen in your head! The colt will move off according to the person heading him/her and after a few session will associate the moving off with the verbal and non verbal cues you have given.

I would hold off on biting till the yearling is at least 16 or 18 months of age, and after you have had teeth checked. I used to just hang a bit- with keys or not- from the halter rings using bit hooks – and let the yearlings mouth and play with it in their stalls- even munch hay- never for a long time at all. I would stand with the yearling and apply gentle pressure to the bit from either side – and from both at once- just to let the horse know what that strange thing can do.

Now is a fun time indeed. You get to ground drive over all the obstacles you led over, and you should remember to keep your circles and turns wide- don’t make these sessions prolonged, but be consistent in this as in everything you do with a young horse! Is good exercise for you and super for them to learn and have fun while doing so. Figure Eight’s, big circles ( in both directions) straight lines- all kinds of stuff can be done. And don’t be too surprised the first time that critter turns around and faces you ! Those lines are long and take a bit of getting used to and you will- you will get the feel of the horse through them and be able to head off that ‘Here I am face to face with you’ move. Have fun!

Ina M Ish
iish@earthlink.net