From: hannah@pomponio.ai.sri.com (Marsha Jo Hannah)
Newsgroups: rec.equestrian
Subject: Re: Yippee! It's Spring!
Date: 15 Apr 92 20:07:37 GMT
	<1992Apr10.233142.16404@u.washington.edu>
Organization: SRI International, Menlo Park, CA
In-reply-to: cbrand@cac.washington.edu's message of 10 Apr 92 23:31:42 GMT

In article <1992Apr10.233142.16404@u.washington.edu> cbrand@cac.washington.edu (Carol Brand) writes:

   2.  The cart...I would start with what is known as a jog cart.  It is
   light, easy to care for, and with big, fat rubber tires, it's like the
   mountain bike of carts (great for the trails!).

"Pipe carts" (lightweight carts made from welded metal tubing and
bicycle wheels) have a number of advantages and disadvantages.  The
good news is that they are plentiful, cheap, light weight (hence easy
to load into your truck to go driving elsewhere), and narrow (hence
can fit down narrower trails than a larger wooden cart).  The down
side of their light weight and narrowness is that they are very easy
to tip over, should one wheel go over a large bump at speed (a 6" curb
is enough to flip one, and it'll take a lot of retraining to get your
horse over the resulting wreck, which often includes a runaway after
the driver has been ejected from the cart).  Pipe carts have almost
nothing in the way of a suspension, so ride roughly on a bumpy dirt
road.  They are low to the ground, which is fine for someone driving a
pony (or a donkey like mine); horse drivers will soon become overly
familiar with the view of their horse's tail and rump, and will
develop a crick in the neck and back from leaning out to the side as
they peer around the horse, to see where they are going.  The bicycle
tires are prone to losing air in storage, or going flat after running
over any kind of stickers on the trail.  Spoked bicycle wheels have a
distressing tendency to turn into pretzels if they hit a rut just
wrong.  (The latter two problems can be solved by getting "graphite
composite" BMX bicycle wheels, and having carriage rubber tiring
applied to them, however, this makes the ride of the cart even worse,
and increases the price of the pipe cart to nearly that of a wooden
cart.)  A pipe cart might be a cheap way to find out if your horse
likes driving, and to do the initial training in an arena, but I don't
recommend them for much else (unless, like mine, your equine is so
small that it can't pull a heavier wooden cart).  If you do get one,
the "easy entry" type sketched by another poster is far safer to get
in and out of than the "jog cart" or "sulky" types.  Note that the
acceptability of metal carts at shows varies---the American Driving
Society won't let them in anything but Open Novice classes, while some
breed shows (Morgan, Saddlebred, etc) require certain types of them.

   ...I always use blinders when I drive with a cart.
   Just a precaution.  Does anyone else use/not use these?

This is something that depends on the individual horse.  Some get very
upset if they can see the cart "chasing" them (such horses must have
their blinders fit very carefully, so they never can get a glimpse
behind them between the blinders and their heads).  Other horses are
made more nervous by NOT being able to see what made that noise behind
them.  Most folks use blinders, because most harnesses come with them.
I had to take them off my donkey, because she kept imagining things
that might be sneaking up on her behind the blinders.  One member of
our carriage club does Combined Driving Events with her ex-endurance
Arab in an open bridle.  Most books encourage the use of an open
bridle in the early stages of training, so the horse gets used to
seeing things behind him (in case the bridle ever comes off while he's
hitched---a major no-no, but accidents happen), then a later shift to
a blind bridle, for fashion's sake if one is showing, or to help the
horse concentrate on the road ahead.

In training, I found it useful to insert another stage between ground
driving and hitching to the cart.  The horse should learn to pull
increasingly heavy, noisy things---a pair of poles (travois), a tire,
then a drag, stoneboat, or harrow, first unloaded, then with you (or a
bale of hay) riding on it.  This gets them used to all sorts of
commotion behind them so they will be less likely to spook at cart
wheels going thru leaves, over gravel, etc.  It also teaches them how
to really pull, and how to step under their body on corners.  In
contrast, a light pipe cart as the first load can teach the horse all
sorts of sloppy shortcuts, because it's so easy to push around.

Enjoy driving!  Like most horse-related pursuits, it's a lot of fun,
but a lot of work.

Marsha Jo Hannah		Murphy must have been a horseman--
La Honda, CA			anything that can go wrong, will!