matching the "un"matched

Thanks Donn, this is another great thread, as was Bekah’s article.

I have felt for years that one of the biggest detriments of the modern age is the misconception that mechanical perfection is the standard we are working toward, and that somewhere there is “The perfect team” that will require that we merely pick up the lines and direct them.

In a way I am slightly redirecting, but the way you describe changing line set-ups is a very valuable lesson for teamsters to understand. Even with a team you work every day there can be adjustments.

A few years ago Erika and I digitized a document authored by Les Barden about lines…. I’ll find it and post it….. In which he mentions that adjustment is a continuing component of driving.

Brad also points out an interesting component of matching… The dynamic between horses. Sometimes the horses can react to each other in ways that complicate the teamsters otherwise excellent guidance. On my other recent thread I mention that I have been working a team for about 6 years together, with great results by the way, but the dynamic between them caused similar behavior to what Brad described.

My mare is so responsive, powerful, and confident that she intimidated my gelding. I started using lever bits too, to provide variable line pressure. This worked great, but it never completely addressed the interaction between the two. That I had to work on through cadence, and improving my individual leadership of each horse.

Recently I brought another horse into the mix. Because she is bay, I wanted to have matched team (?) so I hooked with the gelding for tedding and rake hay. It was really interesting to see how these two horses began to accommodate each other very well. It gave me some good insight into the gelding’s previous behavior with the blind mare, and spurred me to try working the blind mare single.

As a single she had always been very responsive, but as she began to lose sight I started using the gelding for single work. While I never leave much decision making up to the horses, I had sort of bought into the comments made by so many other folks about how she must take cues from the other horse when working, so I had just kept working her in the team only.

Well, the facts turn out to be different. She is a nearly flawless horse, even blind, when working single. Which really has helped me to see more clearly the challenges that she had with the other horse.

So all of that brings me back to matching a team has something to do with mechanical adjustments, but it also has a lot to do with how a teamster addresses the team. By working two singles together I was able to overcome a serious communication barrier that existed between the sighted gelding and blind mare.

In your operation where you are mixing and matching all of the time, you must have a good appreciation for that, but many folks buy two animals and work with them for a long time. My point is that while two horses may click well enough to seem to work as one, we should not fall into that expectation. Rather we should work to keep communication open to each individual.

By he way, years ago I saw a picture circa 1920 showing a fellow spreading manure with a Morgan horse and a Jersy bull hooked into the traces……

Carl

Bekah brought up a good point. What is a matched team? size? breed? task? I really like the best horses for the task at hand, the big greys on the log arch, the black mares on the mower, the big black mare with the little grey mare on the cultivator, the two big grey geldings that look and go alike at the Fair’s farm horse show. For me it really depends on the task, I certainly don’t want mechanical perfection, I just want us to do a job well and in a manner that we can all find comfortable. Comfort in doing a job can lead to a job well done, or at least an honest attempt when the forward horse is not distracting the rest of us.

I played around some this summer with different horses (6 to choose from) to get the right team matched to the right tasks. We have 3 mares and 3 geldings. Usually we plow with 3 on a sulky plow, Sam will take the geldings because one is the “forward” type above that kind of takes over the entire hitch whether he is with one other horse or seven. I generally take the 3 mares, they are more easy going and my hands will last until we are all tired and ready to quit for the day. One day I suggested that Sam give me the slow gelding and I would trade him the fast mare. I used one gelding and 2 mares for the nicest most enjoyable evening plowing, no one was in a rush, light on the lines, everyone eased into the load and stopped for rocks (though they all do that), and that combo had never been used on the farm before. Their attitudes matched each other and the work at hand and they were calm and comfortable and so was I. Below is a photo of our calm, relaxed and comfortable team and the work that we accomplished.

Carl, I found the Les Barden literature about reins, so I am attaching it here 🙂