training Mac and Hatty

Hi, I’m working without any teamsters around and I don’t have draft experience…feel like i’m in a bit of a vacuum so I thought I would post and hope for a bit of feedback from those more experienced.

I stupidly bought the horses ( age four and five) ‘started’ but they were more screwed up than anything. Spooky. Terrified of a whip. Scared of harnessing. Super nervous about anything touching their hocks or having their feet handled. Twisting sideways and fighting harness. Panicky about starting to pull a load, worked up and fast, wouldn’t relax pulling. He had them levered up with a liverpool. They bolted on me twice. I tried the old school ‘pull something heavy until they get tired’ approach, but I didn’t get where I wanted…they remained nervous and lacking in confidence. That was last spring.

They had the summer off. Now I’ve gone back to square one and am starting them the way I would have wanted. Got them steady at harnessing and carrying stuff on their hames. Calm at being touched by whip. Good with letting me trim their feet. I am ground driving them singly off a straight bar on light contact. Good whoa off voice, rarely need to go to the bit as a back up. They are getting better at following the bit in turns. Walk/trot transitions off voice most of the time.

I got rid of the blinders. Always started saddle horses ground driving without them. We had to work a lot on ‘ switching eyes’ ….they really panicked with me passing out of view of one eye and onto the other side’s eye….this is always something to work through when starting to drive without blinders but these guys were waaay worse than a new horse, they are definitely scared of stuff behind them from previous experiences. They are settling into switching eyes though, and I feel good about having them more calm about what’s behind. The one had a constant nervous lip smacking before as soon as he was bridled and that habit is almost gone entirely.

Next I want to teach leg leading from fronts and hinds to de-sensitize those hocks. And then perhaps leading while i drag a post, and graduate to them dragging a post off their hames on both sides. Not sure when to put them together as a team but i don’t think it’s yet. Not sure when to hitch them to something or pull a load with the tugs but I admit I’m nervous about it, as that’s where I get out of my saddle horse experience. I like how much they’ve calmed and don’t want to screw it up.

If anyone has any exercises they can suggest or other ideas, i’d love it…

thanks, m.

p.s. read the ‘close call’ thread, some similar issues, good talk on ‘ de-sensitizing’…with the ‘leg leading, the release comes with dropping pressure off the line when any foot takes a step or thinks about taking a step forward, until you can lead them around with little ‘bumps’ on a line on their legs…i also like ‘whoa’ and standing as a release…but they need to tolerate stuff touching their legs..