Road Test! To Do List and Lessons Learned.

Today was the day for Quattro's first ground drive on the road. Wasn't perfect but wasn't horrendous; I'd give it an 80, and the 20% that went wrong was about half his fault and half mine. Here is what we learned:

Quattro is a VERY forward horse in comparison to the last 4 I've ground driven on the roads: 2 were much older and well-trained under saddle prior to becoming driving horses; the other 2 were ponies. Because I'm old, fat, crippled and out of shape, it's very difficult for me to keep up with him at the pace he prefers to go. On the other hand, though, it's his job to learn to be rated to MY pace, not the other way round. While he's learning that, I think I need to give him a good brisk work in the indoor before heading out. That will take the edge off and make him more amenable to going a bit slower. Seriously, if I have to keep dragging on him every 5 strides, I run a huge risk of accidentally turning him into a jigger or a rearer, and we don't want that!

Another thing that will help is for me to switch to a different set of long lines. I have three, in three different lengths: the extra-long, 40-foot set that I use for circle work; a shorter pair of nice Walsh lines someone gave me ages ago that are about 12 feet; and a set of tandem leader lines I bought at auction which are about 20 feet. Heretofore I've always used the 12-footers for road work because, realistically, 80 feet of long line is way too much junk to potentially get tangled up in, especially if you have an antsy 3-year-old at the end of it. Also, for road work, you want to be just about at the point of your horse's hip, give or take. The problem with using the 12-footers with Quattro is twofold: one, it puts the Terrifying Whip a little too close to him, and that makes him antsy; and two, it doesn't give me any line to let OUT to him when he gets a little ahead of me so that I don't end up dragging on his face. Time to dig out the old 20' tandem lines and we'll try those tomorrow after I clean them and check them over.

So: the good news is, he's really very brave, obedient and curious as well as forward. He's respectful of cars but not scared of them; not bothered by the white lines on the road or changes in footing; took a look or two at the scary plastic sign and the mailboxes but was quickly talked out of it. All of this stuff bodes very well for future work.

The bad news: confession time - he did get clean away from me once. Could have been disastrous but luckily wasn't. What happened was that the mares and foals along one side of the road were trotting along with us and then started cantering; despite my best efforts, he yanked away and went with. Luckily they stopped about 15 feet away and so did he, so it was a simple matter to re-catch him (and oddly enough, he has a GREAT "whoa-stand" when the chips are down, and didn't move a hoof while I untangled him, even when the herd moved off again), but this one is my fault completely for not having prepared him adequately. He needs to learn that he IS. NOT. permitted to follow the herd. He obeyed me three times and then said "F.U." on the fourth; I should have turned him around, probably, when I felt him getting antsy. Tomorrow we'll stay on the home farm and practice this again alongside the barren mare herd in a controlled space so that we can really have it out and make sure this is solidly understood before we hit the road again.

Lastly, some friendly reminders to self and any other greenie trainers out there about stuff you NEVER leave home without when you're schooling a young horse on the road:

* Orange safety vest. You're more visible with it on and you have a LOT more authority standing in the middle of the road waving traffic to a halt if you're wearing orange. I very nearly did leave home without it but grabbed it at the last minute, and was glad I did. If I had needed to stop traffic to catch him, it would have been a lot easier with it on.

* Your cell phone. Yep, I've gotten slack about not carrying it the last couple of years, but let's just say you had an epic disaster and your horse decided to "Drive HIMSELF home"! It'd be nice to be able to give the home crew a heads-up to catch the sucker. I forgot it today; turned out I didn't need it, but I got enough of a heads-up that I won't forget it again.

* Some kind of protective boots for the horse - galloping boots or whatever. Horses who spook big can often grab themselves. Quattro didn't, but could have easily, so I was glad he had them on.

* Boots, helmet and gloves for the human. A body protector would actually be good too, if I had one, so that'll be the next purchase. Until one is sure one's young horse isn't going to rear or run backwards or kick - which Quattro didn't but that doesn't mean I'm SURE he won't - you need all the help you can get!

* The Dumors. Never know when you're going to have to catch a loose horse. :-P

So I'm feeling slightly sheepish about the escape act, but grateful it wasn't worse, and grateful that I know exactly how to fix it. We'll get started on that tomorrow.

The adventure continues.