# Teaching My Pony To Drive-Help?



## Woodland Eventer (Jan 26, 2011)

I'm thinking about teaching my eventing pony to drive because she's had problems with putting her hips out over fences. I don't want her to get bored while she recovers, so I'm hoping to do some western pleasure work as well as trail, and some driving. She's a great trail pony, we won our county 4H trail class, and she's very willing to learn new things, like western pleasure. But I don't even know where to begin to teach her to drive. I know it's ground driving and stuff like that, but how? And what do I use? And where do I get my hands on a not too pricey harness(and maybe even a cart)?

I know absolutely nothing about driving, and I am hoping to get some help from my trainer who has had numerous driving horses and ponies, but I'm hoping for some basic stuff to work on until Spring comes around and I can get some time with her.

Thanks.


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## jwells84 (Mar 29, 2011)

I've taught 2 mini's and a welsh X pony to drive, it was fairly straight forward, the biggest thing they had to get used to was the blinkers and having things follow them. Start with plain ole ground driving( you can use a saddle to run the long reins thru if you don't have a circinglr, make sure you have good control over the movemet, then find something for them to see behind them. I used small tires. let them follow it around for a bit if they are scared of it. then drag it to the side of them, when they are calm with that drag it(person pulling still) behind them. them you can find a safe way to attach it to the saddle/ or harness. once you have good control over the horses movement and it's not fearfull of the object, you can advance to the buggy... also it sometimes takes a bit for a horse/pony/mini to get used to all the harness so make sure they are comfortable in the harness before you even think about attaching anything to it.


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