.

- Let's count the sins in this little video...

- Incomplete/inappropriate harness. No breeching, which is needed when pulling a wheeled vehicle. (Note later that the harness is pushed forward off the horse when the wagon overruns her.) No blinders on the bridle, so this inexperienced horse had the natural reaction to a large, moving THING sneaking up on the edge of her peripheral vision. No "bucking strap", which might at least have kept her from kicking over the shafts.

- No real ground work. What, a few minutes of half-assed lunging? Should have at least done some serious free-driving. Had someone hold back the tugs to give her something to pull against. Practice dragging a log, old tire, shipping pallet until the horse is pretty much bored with it.

- Awful choice of vehicle for a horse's first hitch. Really? A big, long, four-wheeled wagon? And what's the deal with the shafts flopping around independently of one-another? That doesn't look right. A training sled or cart is called-for here. Something that the horse can't "jack-knife" as happens in this video.

- Basic horse training. If a horse spazzes a little and you can push through and continue the lesson, great... But when a horse comes totally freakin' unglued like this one did right from the start, you stop, back up one or more phases in the training, and repeat more slowly... Of course, they couldn't do that in this case, since they skipped all the earlier phases of training to begin-with!

- The "one rein stop". These gals must have been watching Clinton Anderson or some other video horse guru. The one rein stop is indeed useful for reeling-in RIDING horses, but a bad idea when working a horse in harness, particularly between shafts. The last thing you want a driving horse to do is bend-around or try and spin!

- Training grounds. You need someplace clear and open, preferably enclosed but not too small. Not someplace where there are a bunch of bicycles and other dangerous obstacles to crash-through and trip-over. (The horse can be subjected to dangerous LOOKING obstacles under controlled circumstances in later training.)

- What's the deal with the two gals on the lines? If you think the solution to a panicked horse is MORE POWER on the lines, you've been watching way too many Home Improvement/Tool Time reruns!

- Using another horse to aid in training. This would have been a great idea if the other horse had been a veteran wagon horse and they just hitched the two up as a team so the veteran could show the green mare how it was done and kinda' hold her back... Unfortunately, they used a riding pony to try and block the "trainee", causing her to feel even more trapped and panicked.


- Of course, everyone has bad days, mishaps, even the occasional wreck. I've had to pick-up busted implements and go catch strung-out horses galloping around with harness flapping more than once myself. But never have I had a horse give me this much warning that it was not ready without me being able to take the freakin' hint!

- Here's how early harness training usually goes when the people involved are NOT severely brain-damaged.



- Whole different world, eh?

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those first people were complete and total idiots. they deserved to get their wagon broken the harness torn up (if u could call i that) and to fall off the wagon face first.

i have only trained one horse to pull a wagon and i had him pulling it with ten times of being harnessed for the first time....but the ground work was done first...he was just an accepting kind of horse. driving on the ground and then graduating to a wood sled then one with some weight then onto a noisier metal sled and then to a wagon. but even i knew better than to do something as stupid as that.

jesus i hope that horse didnt get hurt in that fiasco....now they will have a devil of a time even getting the horse to come within fifty feet of it. and i wouldnt blame that poor horse for refusing it either.