Puzzled by this behavior

[Vand]

Old Kat,
There could possibly be an issue with the tugs rubbing/irritating your horse or harness fit or something else like that; but some of what you’re describing sounds like your Maggie-horse is just feeling good and likes to go. One of our mares is like that. Once she knows it’s time to work, she does this gorgeous charger prance (pretty to look at, not pretty to drive when you’re fingers are going numb). She’s done it since she was a baby and her momma did it too. There’s a few things we did to change the situation. When I’m taking her plowing, I don’t want her dragging me around all day, so I take her out the day before, hook her to a sled or training tire and work her for a couple of hours. After a while, she is considerably less “prancy” and is more apt to give my hands a break. If you horse doesn’t seem to offer to bolt, this may just be a quirk on her part. Still, keep even pressure on the lines and talk her down (ie: “easy Maggie, etc”).

With any driving horse, you don’t want to drive on a loose line necessarily. While you don’t want to be hanging on your horse’s mouth, you do want contact at all times. If she’s dragging on your hands, you may need to have her bitted down a notch (what kind of bit do you use?). We use a copper-mouth curb bit with butterfly sides (so we can go down a notch if we need more leverage on a particular horse). This is a fairly mild bit; but it’s also got enough “umph” to get the job done with the stronger-mouthed horses. With Sadie, I usually have her bitted down one notch.

With riding horses, you do often want the horse to sit nicely behind the bit; but with driving, you need to have that contact with your horse since you’re not sitting on them communicating directly. If your horse jumps and you have lots of slack in the lines, they have that much further momentum to get running.

If your other horse doesn’t seem to be feeding off her anxiety or excitement, just keep working them slowly and let her get used to things.

[gunslinger598]

I have a horse that I raised & trained that began doing this on his own.

I first noticed it after about a 6 mile drive when I pulled up under a big oak to let them breathe.

He was wanting to go but after a few verbal commands to whoa he just pranced in place. I just kept reinforcing the verbal whoa. After a few more drives he discontinued this behavior.

I’ll try to not make a big deal of the little things allowing time to work through it. If I don’t make a big deal the horses don’t make a big deal and that undesirable stuff fades away quickly.

[OldKat]

@Vand 11528 wrote:

Old Kat,
There could possibly be an issue with the tugs rubbing/irritating your horse or harness fit or something else like that; but some of what you’re describing sounds like your Maggie-horse is just feeling good and likes to go. One of our mares is like that. Once she knows it’s time to work, she does this gorgeous charger prance (pretty to look at, not pretty to drive when you’re fingers are going numb). She’s done it since she was a baby and her momma did it too. There’s a few things we did to change the situation. When I’m taking her plowing, I don’t want her dragging me around all day, so I take her out the day before, hook her to a sled or training tire and work her for a couple of hours. After a while, she is considerably less “prancy” and is more apt to give my hands a break. If you horse doesn’t seem to offer to bolt, this may just be a quirk on her part. Still, keep even pressure on the lines and talk her down (ie: “easy Maggie, etc”).

With any driving horse, you don’t want to drive on a loose line necessarily. While you don’t want to be hanging on your horse’s mouth, you do want contact at all times. If she’s dragging on your hands, you may need to have her bitted down a notch (what kind of bit do you use?). We use a copper-mouth curb bit with butterfly sides (so we can go down a notch if we need more leverage on a particular horse). This is a fairly mild bit; but it’s also got enough “umph” to get the job done with the stronger-mouthed horses. With Sadie, I usually have her bitted down one notch.

With riding horses, you do often want the horse to sit nicely behind the bit; but with driving, you need to have that contact with your horse since you’re not sitting on them communicating directly. If your horse jumps and you have lots of slack in the lines, they have that much further momentum to get running.

If your other horse doesn’t seem to be feeding off her anxiety or excitement, just keep working them slowly and let her get used to things.

Thanks, Vand. I had missed your response when you made it, I wasn’t ignoring it! I just happened to look up at the post above gunslinger598’s and saw my screen name. It had been so long since I posted it that I had forgotten what the issue was.

I never did see much change in her behaviour, but I didn’t harness much in the summer as the heat indices were consistently in the 100 degree plus range; in June and July they were more like 112 to 118 for weeks at a time. I know from previous experience that is not worth a darn trying to deal with my animals when we are all miserable from the heat.

I just started harnessing up again and so far she has not gotten real prancy, but I haven’t asked her to do much pulling either. I have been using a broken snaffle on egg butt rings, but am going to go to the military elbow that Jason Rutledge talked about. I keep forgetting to do that, glad you brought this up so I can get busy and order up a couple of bits. I am also going to drive them in some open bridles to see if that makes any difference.

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