safety issues

[Carl Russell]

Even the biggest burley guy cannot hold back a team that doesn’t want to stop. Line pressure is really not an effective way to stop horses anyway. I actually use the release of pressure to signify whoa. I practice this by periodically releasing pressure without speaking to them until they stop when line pressure is completely released.

Run-away horses are not running away from, for example hornet stings, they are running because they are responding reflexively to finding a solution to an uncomfortable situation, and they don’t trust the teamster as being that solution. Let’s just say that by accepting that the hornets are worth running from and by accepting that you won’t be able to stop them, the teamster validates their response. The horses need to want to stop for the teamster, and the teamster needs to KNOW that they can stop them. Practicing techniques that reinforce this is much more effective than preparing to be ready to force them to a stop by bit or line pressure when they have already committed to running away.

[jen judkins]

One of my mentors is a real stickler for not mounting a horse that wants to walk off (rider here, sorry). To me it was never a big deal…so what…he takes a few steps when I swing a leg over….who cares?!? Well, was I amazed to watch that mentor ride a horse at a gallop…swing her leg out of the stirrup (as if to dismount) and have the horse screech to a halt, without a single cue. She built that in to the horse, by NEVER swinging a leg over a moving horse. Her horse knows that when the leg is swinging, he needs to be standing still.

So I can see all sorts of ways to ‘build in’ safety measures while driving a team. I like Carl’s ‘release of the reins’ as that is simple to practice and if it is done consistently, the horse really does develope a pattern of stopping. Horses love a pattern…it is the easiest way to teach a horse…so pick a pattern, spend some time teaching it in a quiet place and it will be there in a panic situation (IF the horses trust the teamster).

Mark Rashid has a great saying…”consistency leads to dependability, dependability leads to trust, trust leads to peace”.

Ya gotta love ‘peace’! Jennifer.

PS. Sorry to butt in here..I have so little teamster experience, but the training issues do appear similar to the riding horse (who also runaway from time to time, lol).

[TinaY]

Having worked a lot with handicapped children in therapeutic riding, safety has been drilled into me until it’s second nature. We have an elderly team of Percheron mares, and while we’ve never had a runaway, it’s always in the back of our minds.

I believe that ground work is the most important training you can do. We also utilize Clinton Anderson methods, as well as those taught by the late Steve Bowers (our mentor.) By spending time on groundwork, we’ve developed a team that stands politely for harnessing and hitching, doesn’t need stocks for the farrier (we do our own barefoot trimming), leads without running you over or invading your space, and drives and pulls on slack lines.

We use Liverpool bits because the horses seem to like the solid mouthpiece better than a jointed one, and I like the variable intensity option. We bit for the horse, not the driver. After all, the driver can make adjustments to the way they drive, the horse is stuck with what we give them, so we might as well make them happy and comfortable. If you’re worried that you aren’t strong enough or heavy enough to stop your team, then your team needs work. You should be able to stop them with simply ounces of pressure, not hundreds of pounds! That’s the kind of driving that makes them heavy in the first place.

I did learn the hard way not to use too long of a chain when logging, and to pay attention to what side of the chain you’re on. I had black and blue marks in the shape of chain links on my leg, but learned the lesson!

When people tell me they are afraid of horses, I say, “That’s good. They weigh a ton. They have minds of their own. It’s okay to be afraid of them!” It’s all about having the best balance of knowledge, fear and respect.

Common sense is the best safety device there is!

[J-L]

Runaways happen. Work in different environments with different animals long enough and you’ll have it happen. Even the equipment failures that some people think you can completely control are out of your control. Having said that, it’s not a bad thing to try and shut them down if you can. This thread started in the vein of safety. Runaways aren’t always about good/bad teamstering or teams.
I read Donn’s post about slack line driving and was glad to hear someone else use this method. Most of my work is wagon/sleigh work in the winter and I’m by myself. My teams have to be able to work on a slack line and some voice commands while I’m up on a load of hay feeding. It doesn’t take much training to get them to come around to this. You can still pick the slack out of the lines and drive them as some have described on a snug line if you need to. I worked a team of Belgians for a couple years that had been worked on tight lines. Nice team but slightly heavy in the mouth. They didn’t work for me because they didn’t like to move out on a slack line and when they did it made them nervous and gathered up speed fairly quickly. I tried to get them to walk the feed grounds for me but it wasn’t to be. Never got over it either. They just felt comfortable with some contact with the bit. They made a nice team for someone else.

[Neil Dimmock]

I use lever bits because I like to adjust the line tension in my hands that was when I drive two to 46 I can keep the horses up in the bit with out pulling my Hands off, you cant do that with a bar bit and wire bits are just plain severe and if there is a problem there is always blood with a wire bit and that’s well on the way to hard mouth, I have started more than 500 horses to harness and right now I have 18 teams all home raised and trained, no hard mouths and no runaways, in fact the only time I was even close is when a @#$@@% chased me down the road with his big silage truck because He way in a hurry! Runaways don’t have to happen and if you cant train them with out having one then you have a trained teem and not a time bomb, I have retrained teems that have runaway and you never get them to the point of perfection that you can with out one, lever bits help with line pressure but will not hold a runner, training and only training will do that. Bits are only as severe as the one on the lines but some just cant be held loose enuff.
Neil

[Jean]

Hi, I have been reading some older threads and thought this one should be brought back to the front. We are all working with out horses more now that the weather and season has changed.

Lets think about safety first.

Jean

[jen judkins]

@Jean 9214 wrote:

Lets think about safety first.

You weren’t thinking of anyone specifically, were you??:eek:

[Jean]

@jenjudkins 9240 wrote:

You weren’t thinking of anyone specifically, were you??:eek:

Well…

Lets just say I had the whole community in mind.

Jean

[Joshua Kingsley]

I for one appreciate it being brought to the fore front during this time when we are all thinking about using teams more. I have also met a couple that are also just starting with horses in harness and threads like this are important. They also bring safety to mind for me while I am considering a new team this spring. So thank you all for your input and the time it takes to bring such threads back into the light.
Josh

[jen judkins]

OK, I’ll fess up…..Peanut and I had a wreck a week or so ago. I have to say that although I wish it did not happen, it was a hugely valuable lesson for me and probably was a necessary element to becoming a more serious teamster.

We were at Ted’s working on our ‘whoa’/stand/park and doing great! I was really feeling good about how Peanut was working in harness and the progress we were making together over a day or two. I guess I was feeling alittle cocky when I hooked Peanut to the manure spreader. A little voice in the back of my head said, ‘we should wait for Ted to be in the cart when we try this for the first time’, but I was over confident and turned the sucker on full tilt. I don’t even remember how we went from stopped to a full gallop and I don’t even remember being scared, just mildly surprised…until peanut started heading toward a big manure pile. I had no effective steering and I was simply triing to stay in the cart at this point, so up and over the pile we go. I managed to stay on the cart as we went over the pile, but the cart was really rocking on the down side and it hurled me out of the cart and onto my head (luckily on a nice soft grassy spot and not a rock:eek:).

Peanut apparently continued on around the field and back to the barn. He managed to squeeze between my parked rig and my firends rig parked 10 feet away with the forecart and spreader in tow without touching either vehicle. Boy was I happy to be unconscious for that! He made it back to a small paddock where he stopped…thankfully he never hit anything and was completely fine….physically.

Ted caught up to him and took him back out for a long while…while I recovered my memory, which took an hour or so. Then before I could remember enough to be afraid, Ted made me get back in the cart and drive the spreader around the field. Peanut, by then was SO over the spreader….it was just an exercise for me. The next morning we were back on the spreader and any other loud, noise making implement we could find and all went well. Not sure if Peanut was just used to the noisey stuff by then or if I was now suddenly prepared for action. It didn’t matter, we were both feeling more confidence as a team.

I’m most thankful that this happened at Ted’s place….in a reasonably controlled setting (fenced in, familiar, flat area…except for the manure pile:rolleyes:) and that he was there to make sure Peanut ended the exercise working in a calm and productive manner and to make sure I got back in the cart and completed the task. At home, the wreck might have been much worse…and I would have been in no shape to help Peanut….much less get up the gall to get back into the cart to work through the issue. So instead of having a wreck that simply created ‘fear’, we had an experience that has left both Peanut and myself more confident together as a team. That is really the true value of a mentor….putting things in perspective and maintaining focus.

My bruises and dizzy spells are clearing up, but my ego has a ways to go;). I went back and read through this whole thread this week. I remember reading it intently last year when it first developed as well. To be honest, though there seems to be tons of sage experience and useful information here in this thread, I don’t think reading about it can prepare you for a runaway situation…you just have to experience it and learn from it. I can tell you I will spend every second behind Peanut (and any other horse I drive) thinking about how to set myself and my horse up to succeed. I’ll pay more attention to his state of mind and be more consistent with my leadership. I don’t expect to have another runaway, but I don’t think I will be too complacent any time soon.

[Joshua Kingsley]

I’m sorry to hear about your incident Jenn,
I hope that you are both able to take this in stride and continue on in your working relationship for many years to come. I also understand the value of a good mentor. My Great Uncle taught me the basics years ago, and he had video taped me driving the old team to show me what I was doing wrong. The tape showed that if I get over confident and lax on the lines, even an experienced team can catch you by suprise given enough of a chance ( I had waaaaaay to mush line out to be in complete control of them).

My first big horse was a mare that was supposed to be well broke, and she was… for the Pulling Arena. The slightest clink of a chain would set her off like a jack rabbit. That training got me even with 2 years of steady work around the farm with no issues for a long time, almost cost me my right hand one day in the woods. I was thinking that she had turned into a real good mare and went to get some fire wood. I hooked the choker and the clink was all it took for her to be in “Pull mode” she jumped, the choker closed and my glove luckly slid off my hand and got caught instead of my whole hand. She left about a month later. I have looked back on those near misses and wonder why no one got hurt.
For that I will always be greatfull. Well I’m rambling so have a good day all. Drive safe
Josh

[Does’ Leap]

Thanks for sharing that Jenn. It’s a good reminder that we can go from confident to out of control in no time at all. It has been 14 mos or so since we had our “reality check” wreck, and like you, felt so fortunate that all made it without physical harm, and like you, it probably wouldn’t have happened had a mentor been on hand. But that just can’t always be the case. It did take us (humans and horses) a long time to get over the emotional aspects of the whole thing, and of course we are probably never ‘over” it. But 14 mos later we are so pleased with all the good safe work we have under our belt, and just put down our first few acres of hay with the mower you have all helped us with -something I wouldn’t have thought possible a year ago.

This horsepower thing has been quite a journey and one of the best things we’ve done for our farm. These reminders help us all to be a little more careful.

Kristan

[OldKat]

Wow Jen, glad you didn’t land on any thing important! Just a little tease from someone who, as you have learned, knows that it isn’t so great landing on your noggin. Ironically, it was exactly 10 years ago yesterday that my daughters’ gelding dumped me square on my big fat square head. Some folks say I haven’t been the same since, but others say “No, he was always that way!” Anyway, glad you survived. Likewise to anyone else that has ever had such an issue or even a near miss happen to them.

Guess I’ll have to fess up, too. I had an “incident” with my Rachel earlier this week. In fact it was Tuesday; the day Jen posted her story. I have been building a stone boat, working on it an hour or so every time I get a chance for the past couple of weeks. I am almost finished with it and decided that maybe going straight to the stone boat wasn’t such a great idea since I haven’t asked them to drag or skid anything in about a year. So for the past several evenings I had been ground driving each of the mares, letting the single-tree rattle and clank along behind them & rattling a chain off of it, etc, etc. No problems, they accepted it and would stand quietly while I hooked and unhooked to / from their trace chains. I also tied a rope on it and asked my wife to walk behind them and swing the single-tree side to side to get them use to the traces rubbing and banging on their legs. I noticed they didn’t like the trace lying solid against their legs while they were turning. In retrospect that should have indicated a need for some additional work. It didn’t; my first mistake.

Second mistake was the one that really bothers me, because I knew better. I keep my harness, lines etc at home because I currently don’t have a secure place to store them at the barn. Not a good situation & one that will change this year. Anyway, I was driving them with a set of lines that I happened to have in my pickup. When I was just ground driving the mares individually and walking right behind them the lines were plenty long enough. Of course when I started driving them as a team I was using a good long set team lines; still no issue. However as soon as I started dragging an old fence corner brace assembly that I had in my burn pile I realized that my lines were now too short. Way too short. That same little voice that Jen had heard said to me: “Stop right now, go home and get your longer set of lines”. Well, I didn’t because it was getting late and I was making good progress. Hello mistake # 2.

After I took Miss Maggie for about a half dozen passes around the little two acre trap I keep them in I decided it was time for Rachel, who is generally the calmer of the two, to take her turn. She settled down fine. About halfway through the first pass around she dropped her head and just started calmly walking the course I had her on. I relaxed a little bit; I guess maybe mistake # 3. I noticed on one particularly tight turn that the tugs really pressed into her off side rear leg, which she did not like one bit. About the third pass that way I decided to swing her to the right and go to more of an open area. Just about the time the tug pressing into her leg was really bugging her I swung her away and toward the gate. Unfortunately I was on the wrong side and started getting a little squeezed between the adjacent fence and the deal she was dragging, so I gave her a whoa and pulled her up. She stopped and did stand still while I switched sides, but she was a little nervous about it. Unfortunately, when she started up the brace hung up briefly and then popped loose with a jump. Rachel lurched ahead; no big deal or would have been no big deal had I long enough lines. If it has never happened to you it might surprise you how fast they can yank the lines through your hands, especially if they are too short. The lines slapped her rump and she bolted before I could even think “WHOA!”

She flat out ran to the far end of the lot, dragging the now disintegrating brace as she went. She made about two or three passes around a little half acre lot before the brace hung up on something. Fortunately I had a smallish chain attaching it to the single-tree and the grab hook snapped. Rachel ran up to where I had Maggie tied and planted herself right next to her. I ran over and caught her and got the single-tree off her and hung the chains in the carriers while my wife and I looked her over and lead her around a little to calm her down.

Once we were satisfied that she was not injured I drove her around a little just dragging the single-tree. Then we got some old 16” tires out the barn and rigged up the chain to drag a couple of them. After about three passes around she settled down a little. Unfortunately it was now after 9:00 PM by this point and my wife was pointing at her watch, as in “it is time to go home”, otherwise we would have stayed at it for another 30 minutes or more. Anyway, a couple of lessons learned … primarily when that little voice says “This looks like a major screw up in the making” …you BETTER listen.

A further comment, other commitments prevented me from driving them yesterday. I am away from home through Sunday due to business issues. So if anybody has any ideas on any special considerations I should be thinking about before I harness her up on Monday and start dragging whatever, I am all ears. Finally, it so happens that I am off work all next week so I will have a whole week to put in some serious hours in driving the mares. If any of you have any ideas on how I should best utilize this time to acclimate them to dragging things feel free to speak up.

[Plowboy]

Jen and Old Kat sorry about your recent setbacks. An old mentor of mine says “These things happen” and “Ain’t never been a horse born that can’t get scared”. Glad no one was seriously injured. I’ve worked with problem horses,and runners and colts that just got startled by something new. Luckily I’ve never gotten hurt but after learning some tricks I feel more confident about what to do in these situations. I’ve turned into somewhat of a thrill seeker and like working with the rank one’s sometimes. A good friend of ours just missed out on a good team of runaways a couple weeks back but my time is short this time of year anyway. There will be bloopers and mishaps and bad days along the way but alot more good days will be mixed in and if you stick with it the bad days won’t be so bad and eventually you won’t even think about things and just react naturally. You both are well on your way and have great potential. Stick with it and things will get easier and better. Good Luck!

[Rod]

A small thing but could be important is to watch the position of your head when haltering or working near the horses head. Yesterday I took a good punch in the jaw when Matt suddenly decided to whip his head up while I was putting his halter on. It cut my lip but otherwise no knockout which could have complicated the issue.
I have a hard head and it gets knocked about frequently as I am tall and wear a visor cap which limits my overhead vision. I don’t know how many times I have hit it on the tractor bale grab or forks but I could count the nicks and scars on it and find out I guess..

[Author]

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