good afternoon and welcome to skyline farm in north yarmouth maine my name is sheila alexander and i was lucky enough to learn to ride at skyline farm of a long time ago but i still love coming here and it's a wonderful place for people to visit we have walking trails we have a riding ring for riding and driving for our members who have horses is a nonprofit organization who's been in existence for over ten successful years we have a carriage museum and you will be moving inside after we show you the outdoors and see some of our fabulous carriages we have about a hundred over a hundred carriages many came from the oakland a four wheel oakland which is a natural wood vehicle and champagne is the single single course put to us four wheeled vehicle single horses can also be put to two wheeled vehicles a pair horses are almost always driven to four wheeled vehicles and we won't get complicated patsy can walk off now and we'll show you champagne various gaits that she can exhibit in the driving horses were driven they walked they have different speeds at the trot really did they canter because it's a freebie gait and it's much harder on the horse to canter and keep the carriage smooth so usually carriages were driven ad a walk and a trot i'll have to look away and see what she's doing at this point she's walking this is and now she's picked up a trot which is a  hat with a pretty feather and it makes it's uniform is a very pretty turn out to look at it would look lovely in a horse show in a pleasure vehicle class and i think she's going to demonstrate more collected trot to show that your horse can can be collected and go more slowly or if you needed to get from new gloucester to pollen all in a big hurry order north yarmouth in a hurry you would let that horse go at a  road gate which is the speed where they are covering the most ground they've lengthened their stride and they're going to get they are very quickly probably wasn't the going to church gate that would have been more sedate because everyone would have been dressed up in the horse would go to church wait patiently while you were at church and then take you back home again let's see what path you're going to do next i bet she's going to let the mayor lengthen this is a mayor i think she's twenty one years old she's in wonderful condition and now she's lengthening this is the trot that would get her to cover the ground and and go quickly from point a to point b the mayor is working very nicely she has her head in the correct position she's using all their muscles she's not pulling the carriage with the bridle she's pulling with the rest  does the circles very nicely this vehicle is cut under the front wheels can move under the the seat so that there's a nice turning radius some vehicles aren't cut under and you have a much more limited turning radius so you have to be very careful not to make sharp turns and collapse your front wheels so the cut under vehicle makes it much more comfortable for the horse and much more maneuverable patsy has gloves on which you always wear when you drive so that your hands don't slip on the reins she's carrying a whip which you only use on the sides of the horse as an aid to say i'd like you to bend this way or this way and she has her voice that's another aid that she can use and the reins transmit all of the directions to the horse when you're riding you have many more available age you have your seat your weight your legs when you're driving you have fewer aides so your horse really has to be very well trained and champagne is a campaigner she's been shown she has is very well trained she's also a riding horse so she can be she can be all terrain in both carriage and riding  patsy carries her whip which you always carry in your right hand and use it to the right side of the vehicle which is from the british tradition she rarely uses or whip but if you ever need it you you really should have it in hand not in your whip socket  the mayor has on a black harness with this vehicle it would be correct for her to have a natural colored leather harness it can go either way with natural wood with a painted vehicle you would always use black harness she has blinders on that keep her focused that's a nice trot that would get you cross country she has blinders on which keep her focused full wood so that she doesn't see the wheels she doesn't if you go through a puddle she doesn't see the splash she most driving horses are driven with blinders on the bridle it just focuses them in the correct direction there there again that's a nice this is a lovely carriage for pleasure driving it sprung beautifully very very comfortable to ride in she comes around nicely the wheels go under the vehicle when the turn necessitates it champagne looks as happy as patsy so while we watch her i will just say that we have an exhibit in the summer of some of our hundred carriages each summer we post an exhibit in the museum and then that gets taken down we have a fall art show and then we have a winter exhibit which is mostly made up of our fabulous collection of slaves slaves where the vehicles that have made it over the years because they were tucked away in the back of the barn or up in the mowing they didn't rock carriages sometimes were left outdoors which tended to rot their wheels cross their seats wrought all the leather and ross the metal we are fortunate we have some vehicles that  restored and we have some vehicles that are in our original condition which is it's interesting to see the original condition and also the restorations or the conservation of the vehicles skyline foam has got a lovely collection of old vehicles and we've just have a look at a few of them today but this one that i'm standing next to is probably the earliest in our in in it it's relatively comfortable because it has got some spring board if you take out this whole piece you then have a small cart left that you can carry a load of grain or various other things in it and simply lead your horse and we were extremely lucky to get this this piece and goodness knows where it's been all these years up and top of somebodies barn it has a warden axles and it has a little caught up in the middle here to to remove the the wheels and that would have been one of the earliest ways of getting about when they had some sort of roads this one is the new schaaf these long pieces that come up go along the back and that's the way it is sprung that and a fairly springy shot but there's no there's no real springs in it this would be friends it will hold two people not much in the way of luggage but they're very very much associated with with new england the top will go down and in bad carriage it could hold six people inside very r which were essential in new england were a very cold way of travelling and in the city it was a city streets might be less snow and they might be able to up into the coach house in the summer but again like the rockaway it's got a beautiful beautiful padded carriage and a let down window so  like a carriage on runners but built to be that way this is an interesting material and then they would use rugs and lap robes to keep warm but it's all very highly decorated and has been no doubt up in some hay loft over a long time all the on work it's very beautiful and it's it's it's covered with these flowers rather like the old  they they were pretty snug and it was it was in the winter and then obviously put away and so that's how it's managed to tremendous help to people living in the country when they were getting their mail and new gloucester has a sleigh that was used and also a vehicle that had been adopted from all they use the post office did however have an official vehicle which you could buy if you if you chose to  what this one here is he is driving along sorting his mail and in some cases they would use two horses always one horse for the variable but i believe that they would go many miles on all these rural deliveries and so if they could loop around and come back home at lunch time they then often changed horses and went out on the next loop with  a fresh horse but this one is an example of what the post office supplied and is a nice little beer call for obviously when it was not good weather and you could  open it opens the doors like this and he's really quite protected inside that only example of what you could buy however i've not come across any signs them being used around just around here be interested to hear if anybody knows of them and then our hearse is very similar to the one that was that they haven't power