Saturday, 21 June 2014

Daisy's new job

We have got a harness for Daisy so we can train her to pull logs and then use her to clear fallen and cut trees from the woods - where it is rather steep to get any vehicule in. In our lessons we have done some work with a rather small pony harness and got her used to pulling pallets as well as long reining her.
The new rig is made for pulling things like logs which are low down rather than a cart which has a higher center of gravity. It comes all the way from Canada! Doug is not trying to drag her along as it appears, but swatting a fly (there are some giant bitey ones around)


Eventually she will have long reins too but at the moment we are just leading her as although she is being very good, it is all new with many funny clankings and she is a bit suspicious of the whole thing.

We got an adjustable head collar so we can try it with Owen too. He took a bit less readily to the pulling and long reining than Daisy, but then he is only half bred for it (he is half Arab half Boulonnaise - the Boulonnaise are a French breed which amounst other things, took fish from the coast to Paris - grey horses were favoured as they went at night and were easier too see). Daisy, being an Irish Vanner was bred to pull, her back legs turn out slightly for that reason.

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