My girls pull their first wagon together!

I have been pretty busy working horses this weekend.  Saturday morning I got up with the sun (6AM) and harnessed up the girls.  I then loaded them both, and went over to my friend Pat Chases house.  Pat has been doing this longer then me, and I find him to have some very useful insight and knowledge.  We decided working in the morning would be a good thing, and he told me that if I wanted to bring my girls, I could, or we could just work his.

My goal was just to work my horses on his sled.  His sled has a pole on it for team work, and it's great at getting horses used to having that pole between them.  I had the girls together in no time, and I tried to ground drive the girls into position over the pole like the pros do.  This almost worked, but not quite.  I got their front feet in the right spot, but I couldn't coax the rear ends into position without moving the front.  The girls had no problem scooting over though.

I think I surprised Pat when I hooked them to the sled.  When I ground drive and hook to the wagon, I have been very lucky to teach them to stand perfectly still when they hear the tug chains moving.  I haven't yet had one get fidgety while doing that (knock on wood).  I hitched the girls to the sled without tieing them to the fence nearby.  I think Pat was impressed.

Next, we got down to business.  It was great.  Pat's sled has a Pioneer single implement seat on it.  It's a nice cushy ride!  I worked the girls for about 45 minutes.  Turning, moving, stopping, and even trotting.  Pat's property is awesome for this kind of thing.  His field is sloped, so taking them up hill is quite a workout.  Poor Rachel was sweating pretty quick, while Pam didn't seem to be bothered at all.

Pam is still very cautious while doing this stuff, but she responds great to commands.  When I step them off, she was the first to move, and she seemed to always put her shoulders into the pull.  I had to get after Rachel a bit to step up and match Pam.  They did awesome though!  No rodeos, or funny business.  I was so happy, that I had to get some pictures.  I asked Pat to take them around the field once so I could get some pictures of them working, and he could drive them and tell me what he thought.

After Pat parked the sled on a 45 with the fence, he told me that he thought we should try the girls on his wagon.  I thought this would be a good thing too.  The girls had the initial edge worn off them and they were in a working mood.  The wagon was parked 90 degrees with the fence, and so the girls would have to step over the pole to get in position.  I asked Pat to show me how it is done.  Pat is awesome on the lines!!!  Under his hands, he had the girls perfectly in position on the first try.  He's really good!

So next thing you know, the girls are hitched up to the wagon.  Pat took the picture of me and my boy getting set to drive them with a wagon for the first time.  I then drove them on the wagon for another 30 minutes.  They did amazing.  No problems at all.  Pam is still a little cautious, but she's getting better every time I work her.

While I was doing all this, Pat had pulled his team up and had them harnessed.  I decided the girls had earned a rest, and so I unhooked them from the wagon and tied them.  Pat took his mares, with each of their colts in tow, and began having them pull the sled.

After a few minutes of this, Pat had an idea.  He asked me to drive my team in the field with him.  he wanted to see how they all reacted working in the same field together.  I thought this was worth a shot, and so I agreed.  I felt bad for the girls for how much they'd worked for their first real day as a team, so I opted to ground drive them.  I started off just following Pat, and I'm convinced that horses have a parade mode that they just go into.  Following Pats girls on the sled, my girls just walked perfectly behind them.  No input on the lines needed.  They did awesome.  Then I went in parallel and then lead with my team.  It was a good experience.
 

After that we did a few more things.  Pat has an orphan colt that thinks he is a human.  :)  He leads fine on halter, but since he has no momma, he hasn't had the opportunity to go along while his momma is being worked under harness.  I decided to try and give him the chance.  While my girls were tied, I walked the colt up to my girls to see how they reacted.  Buddy (the orphan colt) had no interested in them, and they didn't care he was there at all.  Because of this, I tied him to the side of Rachel, and ground drove them with Buddy in tow.  That poor colt got drug all over the field.  LOL.  He will follow a human fine, but he did NOT want to follow another horse.  It was a great experience for him to have.  That went awesome, and we'll probably do it again.  It was really cool to think that we had 7 horses working at one time (Pat's team + babies, my team + buddy the orphan).  :)

The only slight problem we had involved the other 2 colts.  Those two colts know they are boys, and they know my horses are not their mothers, and they know that one of my mares (Rachel) is open and in season.  After those 2 colts had been tied to their mommas for about 20 minutes, Pat unhooked them so they could nurse, and also so they could relax a bit.  They were great, till my girls were within 50 feet.  Ace (Pat's gorgeous colt) saw my mares and ran right up to them full speed.  He started clicking his teeth on Pam, and Pam (who is bred) shook her head in disgust and tried to stomp a front foot at him.  I am trying to ground drive while this is happening.  Ace then tried to ride Pam's back and was rewarded with a kick to the side.  After that, he ran to the front of both girls and tried to kick them.  From there he really took an interest in Rachel, to her disgust as well.  So I spent the next few minutes doing circles away from Ace, while Pat drove his mares back up to the barn.  Ace soon followed his momma.  Lesson learned!  From now on, we don't drive my girls in the same pasture with those babies loose.

This also got me to thinking, and I think this kind of behavior is exactly why some people think geldings are the best horses to drive.  I can see a scenario where a fella could be driving a perfectly behaved set of mares, but if one is in season, and a stallion happened to be nearby, you might be up for an uninvited situation!  What would you even do in that situation?  Carry a gun?  That just seems scary to me!

Great weekend!  I'm still grinning from it.  If you're reading this, you made it to the end of this lengthy blog.  Congrats!  :)  More sled work to come.  I'm really pleased with the progress Pam and Rachel are making.  Wonderful horses!