Riding a Driving Horse

It would be interesting to know how many people regularly canter and/or gallop their harness horses, either under saddle or in harness. Jumping is another no-go activity for many drivers. What are people really doing out there? Are galloping and jumping still considered unsafe? Philippa Gammell has the answers.

Riding a driving horse

We ride our ponies all the time. They do all their initial walk work under saddle and don't go into harness until they have done a month under saddle. The roads are all hilly here so it is a lot to ask them to drive straight away from nothing. We also do quite a lot of their fittening work under saddle too. Interval training was an integral part of their work especially when they were younger. We found it helped their wind and stamina, and particularly their recovery rate and we will be doing the same with the young ones we are bringing on this year which have never done a serious stroke of work yet! If we manage to get them reasonably fit this year it should make things easier next year.

To provide variety we are proposing to do a little jumping and some pony club type games which will help with their agility and responsiveness but without firing them up or being rough with them, rather like doing obstacles, smooth turns and thinking of balance all the time rather than speed. We don't want to turn them into gymkhana ponies or their dressage will go to pot, but youngsters tend to be rather thick! Anything we can do to make them understand about turning, changes of pace collected, working and extended trots can all be developed in a fun and games scenario.

Cantering in harness

If driving horses are used competitively they need to be able to canter in harness. Plenty of accidents have occurred in the past and will do so in the future with horses and ponies going out of control, when in harness. The safety of everybody and their horses is paramount and if, and I repeat IF the first place a harness horse/pony canters in harness and gives itself a fright coincides with an appearance in public, the result is often an incident if not an accident. We all need to consider how to achieve a safe progression so that our harness horses are content to be in canter AND under control.

We also all need to be responsible as to HOW we achieve this happy state of contentment in our horse. The time to give our driving horse its first experience of canter in harness is at home. What follows is how we achieve it here but is not meant as advice to others and anybody who tries it must take responsibility. I will not be held liable.

Firstly we make sure that our ponies are reliable under saddle. They must be able to canter without bucking, with smooth and willing transitions in and out of canter. We canter them in company and on their own, they must canter away from company without napping or protesting. Initially they find the speed very exciting and may be exuberant. So when they can canter without fuss or excitement as part of their exercise routine it shows that perhaps they are ready to try it in harness.

The harness work must also have been going smoothly, with obedience and submission to the aids, and in harmony with the driver, and the pony must be going forward into the hand.

I would choose a windless day when the ground is not either muddy and therefore slippery for the horse and the carriage, nor dry when again the going would be slippery and the carriage find it easy to slew if things go wrong.

The pony should be very well exercised in harness. We never attempt to canter in harness for the first time with a fresh pony. We are lucky to have a field which has quite a pronounced slope up into a corner with a high wall.

We would practice by having ridden up the same ground so that the pony is used to cantering there and always comes to a halt at the top facing the wall. Stopping then becomes a habit at the end of the canter and it knows the wall is there. If all has been going smoothly under saddle and the pony has been well used in harness on the day of the canter trial I would then ask for canter in harness for a few strides only. If they are doing it uphill they have to be in their collar. It is much more difficult for them to buck if their energy is being used to propel them up a slope. I never canter them downhill or on a flat piece of ground. That is much more risky as it would be much easier for them to either buck or lash out.

I always take an experienced fast helper with me. If things do go wrong and they might, you will need help. It is also worth having an extra experienced person in what might be deemed the catching area! Again they need to be fast and agile apart from anything they might have to get out of the way in a hurry! We all wear hard hats and gloves, trousers and a jacket. All good protection. ( It is worth telling somebody else what you are up to so that if you are overdue back home a search party can be sent out. If you have a mobile phone give it to the person on the ground. Make sure your pockets, and your mounted grooms pockets are empty of anything which could cause an injury.)

I have discussion with my helpers and get their input on if they think pony is actually ready to canter in harness. It is easy to allow my own determination to succeed overrule a proper assessment of the risks involved and whether the pony is actually psychologically ready for what is a very big step up in his education.

I consider it is not fair to organisers to take a harness pony into company which is an unknown quantity in canter. I would therefore try to make sure that my novice has been properly introduced and has been tried in all three paces before taking it out in strange company. It is going to have enough to cope with, and so are you, when it goes out in public for the first time. I have got to know for my own peace of mind that although Canter in NOT a Requirement in ANY Competition worldwide that if a few strides of canter occur by mistake that the horse/pony is not immediately going to go into panic mode.

We always carry a pair of wire cutters in our spares. They will cut through harness quickly, or buckles or fence wire. Heaven forbid, but they might be useful to get someone else out of trouble too. Horses have a habit of arriving in fences, that's why we choose our canter ground on an upward slope facing a wall. (P.S. People may be surprised to hear that in competition we never gallop any of our ponies in harness, to me gallop verges on very dangerous, the momentum created is very difficult to control. Fast canter yes provided they are in harmony with me but only under strict control, I had a near miss last year and it scared me rigid.)

A last word, make sure your reins are in tip top shape at all times and especially if you decide to canter. They are the only thing between you and kingdom come.

The above I repeat is only what we do and I would be interested if this method is how other people tackle the problem of how to start to canter in harness or how they otherwise get started in canter.

As a final note, most eventing accidents or runaways that I have witnessed in the last 20 years have involved a) a novice horse/pony and /or b) a novice driver c) a downhill slope driven at too fast a speed with the resultant loss of stability of the carriage leading to a runaway or d) an adverse cambered slope driven without sufficient care or with too much speed leading to a tip-up.

Add all those ingredients together and you can expect to have the sort of accident that will land you and your helper and probably several spectators in hospital, your horse to be at the vet, your carriage to be at the menders, your harness in shreds and the insurance company considering whether to insure you again. Never allow your adrenalin to take control.

If things are going exceptionally well in the obstacles TAKE A PULL. Most accidents at events happen when competitors stop thinking about what they are really doing, and get reckless, and they then get wrecked.

Safe driving,

Philippa Gammell