# Driving a pacing pony



## lillie (Oct 26, 2009)

that sounds barbaric to me too.


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## jimmy (Aug 26, 2009)

never heard of that i know they use hobbles which are basically leather traces but they are just to stop them breaking their gait when racing they would,ent mark them


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## CheyAut (Nov 26, 2008)

I think that's horrible! Never heard of it. But, I've also never heard of any breed other than standarbreds doing serious harness racing. Have heard of some people doing so with minis and mini donks (I'd love to hehe!) but not as serious, I don't think, as the standies. And with standies, there are pacers and trotters. They DO use things tied front to back legs, sort of like you describe, but higher up on the legs. I am not in the harness racing world, we don't even have a track here in Az, but I don't THINK it does what that man did to his poor horses  I sure hope it's not a common practice, but sounds like it might be there, if harness racing with Welsh Ds is common! BTW, I LOVE Welsh, esp C and D, and have a Welsh D/Haflinger cross


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## lolayla (Jul 25, 2008)

^standardbred hopples definitely are not the same as the op described. we do not tie their legs together to train them. standies pace naturally. hopples are just a reminder. they are extremely loose, when the horse is standing the hopple doesnt even touch the horses legs. also, if there is rubbing or burns from the hopple we take that as either the horse is sore or their stride is uneven and something needs to be fixed so the rubbing no longer happens. what happened to this poor pony is terrible!!


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## AlmagroN (Jul 19, 2009)

lolayla said:


> ^standardbred hopples definitely are not the same as the op described. we do not tie their legs together to train them. standies pace naturally. hopples are just a reminder. they are extremely loose, when the horse is standing the hopple doesnt even touch the horses legs. also, if there is rubbing or burns from the hopple we take that as either the horse is sore or their stride is uneven and something needs to be fixed so the rubbing no longer happens. what happened to this poor pony is terrible!!


actually this is not 100% true. just because a horse is a bred pacer does not mean they will pace. trotting is STILL first nature to a horse, pacing is 2nd in the world of standardbreds. 

also hopple burns can happen from not only what you said, but a horse who has to wear a tight hopple. some horses cannot pace in a longer hopple and therefore they do burn. oiling hopples will stop the burning. burning just behind means the hopples are too long and the horse is not properly filling them out when pacing. 

as far as this horse goes.... this doesnt sound right to me. thats a bit rediculous to do. though i cant say if i know if this is common practice or not because im not very familliar with that horse. but you would think being that they MAKE pacing hopples, they would just put those on them? weird that he would chose to do that.


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## lolayla (Jul 25, 2008)

absolutely!! i just wasnt getting fully indepth as i thought people would get confused with too much information. there arent many people on this forum who understand standardbreds.


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## AlmagroN (Jul 19, 2009)

lolayla said:


> absolutely!! i just wasnt getting fully indepth as i thought people would get confused with too much information. there arent many people on this forum who understand standardbreds.


live, and die racing, breeding, and loving standardbreds here!!


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## harnessracinglady (Oct 7, 2011)

Hi

Just stumbled across this.. I train racing Standies (pacers) and thought I'd clear a few things up.

Firstly, I seriously doubt your horse is a Sec D. I've never heard of anybody trying to race one and I don't know why anybody would try since a Standardbred would beat a Sec D every time. Are you sure the previous owner didn't tell you he was a Sec D to try and sell him for more money? This happens a lot as Standies are not popular riding horses (I have NO idea why as I would never want to ride anything else), although usually the unwitting buyer will be told it is a TB or TBx.

As for the rubs you describe, it sounds to me like terrible abuse of the hopples. They are NOT meant to cause this sort of damage, and they are not supposed to be used to make a non-pacing horse pace. Some breeds (like Standardbreds, Icelandics and many others) pace naturally and all they need is a little encouragement to pace at high speed. Hopples are made of soft, flexible, lightweight plastic and are there to encourage them to pace without breaking into a gallop. If the horse starts to 'skip' his leg will hit the hopple and that will remind him to shorten his stride and stay in a pace. 

If the hopples are adjusted correctly they will not cause any damage or pain whatsoever. If the hopple is set up incorrectly or the horse is sore, for example, he might rub then. But not if everything is right. We bought a horse 6 weeks ago who had had a terrible time for various reasons, one of them being her harness which was set up all wrong. As a result she had bad hopple rubs and the skin was raw in patches. After a few small changes to the tack we tried her a few days later and the hopples didn't even knock the scab off. Then it was just a case of getting her happy and showing her that her harness is not going to hurt her, and I'm pleased to say she won 5 weeks later at 10-1 (her first win in 13 months).

Pacing comes very naturally to a pacing-bred Standie. Of the 3 I have, the mare I just described paces all the time when you ride her without hopples (which is how I do 90% of the training). My oldest horse who is 16 will walk, trot, pace, canter, gallop or do a running walk on command - he also jumps like a stag. The third horse very rarely paces unless he's excited. When their blood is up most pacers will choose to pace as it comes naturally to them.

Could you post a photo of your horse and the rubs? 

I hope this has been of some help


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

harnessracinglady said:


> Hi
> 
> Just stumbled across this.. I train racing Standies (pacers) and thought I'd clear a few things up.
> 
> ...


You might want to check the date on the thread. It's almost two years old. :wink:


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