Driving My Pair - Part One

Today was day #1 in driving Sky and Zorro as a pair. All I can say is.... phew. I am so glad we survived. I'm so glad nothing happened to Zorro to make him not like driving. I'm so glad Sky put on her big girl panties and kept it together, sort of. She didn't have a melt down so that's something!

I had the lines set up backwards here. Fixing that really helped keep their heads close together!

I truly have no idea what I'm doing and watching other videos hasn't been exceptionally helpful. LOL. I may have to haul them both to Helena and get some hands on help from my friend that drives a Percheron team there. She will laugh at me for sure! I was so NERVOUS today. I don't sugar coat things around here and I won't sugar coat that. They are small but man are they mighty and a few times when Sky thought about having a melt down I could TOTALLY see how fast things could go downhill.

Once those team lines are on, they both better be on the same page. A few times Sky decided she didn't want to do this and would start to back up which would drag Zorro... BUT Sky would swing her rear and back up which would pull Zorro in a completely different direction and before you know it they are both facing each other and pulling as hard as they can in the opposite direction.

Annnnnd once again I was SO GRATEFUL that I'm not driving draft horses!

I have a strap that snaps to their collars. That and the driving lines are the only things keeping them in line with each other. Sky loved to swing her hips away and get things all jinked up.

I had both of my boys out there helping so they would jump in and each take a horse while I got things sorted. I could quickly unsnap their collars but there is no fast way to get the team lines off. So you just have to get things sorted and get them going forward so they can line back up.

I'm sure I should have had their hips connected some how, since we weren't pulling anything, but I didn't want to connect them fast and hard in case they really had a melt down. Also I'm super glad that Zorro is bigger than Sky. He kept things mostly on an even keel.

Just as I thought, once we went out on the track and could just go ahead in a straight line, Zorro was literally dragging Sky. And if I asked her to walk out a bit more she would jump forward and jam into the collar, dragging Zorro. But, thank goodness, he would just keep walking or whoa if I asked him to.

Having them "walk on" at the same time proved to be quite tricky! LOL! Not something I thought would be an issue, but Sky would just stand there and Zorro would listen immediately. I shouldn't have been surprised.

We set up the two pony evener and attached it to two car tires. I thought the skidsteer tire would be too heavy but I can see the two car tires will be too light. So I need to get a few more eye bolts and some chain so I can have them pull 4 or 5 tires. That will be a bit more weight, without over facing them, and will also make quite a nice drag for the track!

Hopefully I can hitch them up again tomorrow and we can practice some more. The weather is supposed to be good all next week so we will have lots of time to practice and then hopefully pull the tires!

These two really are the BEST ponies ever. I don't know very many ponies who are so different from each other that would put up with the things I make them do. They are so smart and kind.

I will share all the parts and pieces I used to hitch these two together in the next team post. I just had so much going on in my mind that I couldn't worry about those photos today. But that's coming soon!

(I need to figure out how the heck to adjust and attach the teams lines so they are effective at keeping them close together while allowing me to have a little contact with the outside line as well. I'll watch some more videos tonight and see if I can figure it out! If you have any suggestions I'm taking everything anyone wants to share!)