Preventing Wrecks

"I do not trust horses to stand without me being on the lines or someone being on the lead ropes or them being tied up. Since I often work alone and many of my students are the same, I have had to devise ways to maintain my presence on the lines while freeing one or both hands for small quick tasks such as lifting the tongue or opening a gate."

“Another scenario that I run into is where a horse is frightened by something suddenly, maybe they jump, maybe they scoot for a little ways, and the normal human reaction tends to be to jerk back on the lines to try to regain control. When we do that, what happens is that the horse is jumping, spooking, scooting because they were frightened by something, they’re afraid they’re going to get hurt or killed. That’s the way their brains work. What happens when they jump and we jerk is we hurt them -- we cause pain by jerking back -- and that jerking verifies and confirms their fear of getting hurt. Their reaction to that pain is to get out of here faster. A vicious cycle can develop, and just after two or three times of this happening, we can effectively teach a horse that he should run further and faster when he does jump at something before that pain gets him.

“In order to break that cycle or try to retrain a horse that has had this experience, we need to learn to give with our hands instead of jerk back. It’s counterintuitive for us as humans. Our normal reaction is to regain control, hang on, and stop that horse. So we have to work, to practice, to visualize doing this differently. We have to learn to drive with the give and take of the pressures on the lines and float our hands and give with the horse when he pushes into the bit just a little before we try to work him back. In normal driving situations, we have to train our hands to be pressure sensors, to give and take with the horse. We shouldn’t wait until an urgent situation presents itself; we need to be proactive and practice it all the time so that we can maybe prevent the cycle from developing in the first place. It’s not uncommon for horses to scoot a little occasionally, so there’s a pretty good chance you’ll get to learn to use this skill before an urgent situation arises. Then when we’re in an urgent situation, we’re not as far from being able to do it instead of jerking.”

“My mentor Addie wouldn’t drive horses or ride with someone who was driving horses unless the lines were secured so they couldn’t be lost off the outfit. It’s much easier for a teamster to lose a line out of their hands than you might think. You can lose a line for various reasons. If a horse roots its nose, the line can get pulled out of your hand, or if a horse stumbles and goes forward and down to recover. Sometimes we’re just clumsy when we’re shortening or lengthening a line. It’s just not worth taking a chance. I always make sure that if I lose them, I can get them right back. Different techniques are needed for different types of equipment and different situations.”

“My old-time mentors didn’t break little rules like these. They paid incredible attention to details. They took care of their horses. We have a huge responsibility to these animals in my opinion. Being on the lines is one of them.”

One of the most common problems I encounter with
my students and their horses is inattentiveness. – Doc Hammill

“We have to have our horses’ respect to keep us all safe,” says Doc. “And one of the ways they show us respect is to give us their attention.” Doc was recently asked by a client to help them with one member of a team whose partner had become permanently lame. The Belgian gelding, Don, had once been a leader of a six-horse hitch and had never been driven single to anyone’s knowledge.

“Don’s attention was going everywhere but to the person that he was working with, which was me when we got started. We were at his home farm, so the area was familiar, the people and dogs were familiar; it was just a lack of respect issue. He would respect the bit to a certain degree but not the lines or a lead rope. Every time we went by gates, he wanted to look down the alley or go out the gate. He would even stop at the gate. We just kept at it, repeating the route until he was paying attention. It’s so important to deal with inattentiveness because if you don’t, you can’t manage the horse’s behavior or action.

“All of my testing out of Don and all of my working on inattentiveness was done in a small confined area. Had I taken that horse out in the open or in a big arena or on the road or pasture or something like that, it would have been much harder and not nearly as safe to deal with that issue. I dealt with it in a small confined space; then we went into a larger space before we ever got him to where I was comfortable taking him down the driveway. If I hadn’t been able to ground drive him safely, I would have gone back to the halter and lead rope to get him prepared.”

Another opportunity presented itself to focus Don’s attention during Doc’s session. “We drove down the long driveway, and a herd of horses came galloping out into the front pasture, creating quite a commotion. When the horses were behind him and to the side, Don’s energy came up but then came back down. He responded pretty well. But as we continued up the driveway, when the house got between us and the other horses and the horses were going away from him, Don started acting as if he was thinking, ‘I gotta go with them.’ Fortunately, a circular route was available where I could drive him repeatedly that kept him from getting what he wanted. I was able to diffuse his energy. By the time we made the second loop, he was much more reasonable; not completely soft, but very much improved. The problem we get into is if we quit with a horse when they’re acting out like that – if they’re misbehaving, jigging, wanting to hurry -- and you let them go to where they want to go, they get the impression that if they act that way, they get what they want. It’s extremely important that we establish our leadership and do what we have to do to get them working right so they make the right associations.”

Doc recalls another instance where he helped a student deal with inattentiveness in her new horse. She had just bought the horse that had been trained to ride and drive but only lightly used. When she started to work with the mare, a very dominant type, she rode her into the pasture and got bucked off, then ground drove her in the pasture and the mare ran away. When Doc arrived about six weeks after the mare was purchased, he made sure to start in a small pen. On a halter and lead, Doc had the student open the gate, and the mare tried to go out. Immediately Doc had the student shut the gate so he could work with the mare some more. Then the owner opened the gate again. The mare was better, but Doc only went out six feet before turning her back in again. The mare showed lack of respect by trying to eat grass.

“I worked with her in the pen with the gate open for a long time, working her past it in both directions. After I had gotten her good on halter, I started ground driving her in the round pen. This took awhile because she wasn’t interested in listening. She regressed; I had to repeat what I had done on halter now with ground driving. By the time I asked the student to open the gate, the mare walked off to go out the gate despite the fact that she had been going really well in the round pen. It was like it had all gone out the window, like I wasn’t even there. All in all, the first couple hours were on the halter, the next couple hours it was ground driving.”

Doc says, “I see this so much and hear about it so much. Just because something works in the round pen doesn’t mean that it will work outside. Usually if it does work, it never works as well. Increasing sizes of enclosures gradually is so important because it allows us to test that we can retain our horses’ attention in a new but still controlled environment.”

Since the damage from wrecks is often irreparable,
it behooves us to take all precautions possible. -- Doc Hammill

When it comes to wrecks, it takes less time to prevent them than to recover from them, since in some cases you can’t recover from them at all. There are things we can do to make the equipment we use safer, and there are things we can do to improve our relationship with our horses. Master teamsters are meticulous about their responsibilities to and relationships with their horses, ensuring that the horses are calm and relaxed, and wrecks are only a distant possibility.