Willow Learns to Drive ---Part One



When I got Willow in 2004 he was a mostly unbroken four year old.  Because of his dropped hip he has a mechanical unevenness of his stride, one back leg moves a little different.  I've had him checked and xrayed and everyone agrees it's caused by the way his hip healed.  Since I have no ring and usually no one to ride with I thought I'd get him broke to drive so he'd be really bridlewise before I started riding him on my own and in the open.  He had about 5 rides on him when I got him, which I was very grateful for.  My very good friend Fonz Hargrove is a combined training driver/trainer extraordinaire.  I was lucky enough to get Willow a place in his barn and Fonz put him to work.   First, he introduced him to the harness and long-lined him for a week or two before hitching him. 

Soon, he was pulling a tire around during his longlining lessons, getting used to the uneven pull as it bounced and jounced and thumped over the ground.  Next came letting the tire run over obstacles such as big orange cones, which make quite a scary racket as they get hung up in it and flop around!

Fonz never gets upset or hurried.  I don't think I've ever seen  him flustered by anything a horse has done.  When the scary, horse-eating cones got caught up in the tire and chains  Willow did have a panic attack and reared straight up. He was on a slight slope at the time and lost his balance and sort of rolled down on his behind (thank goodness he didn't fall over!), then got up and looked a bit embarrassed, and Fonz never even acknowledged it, just said, 'yeppppp, okaaaaaay' and circled him back near but not in the cones a few times before going back over them. Somehow I failed to get a picture of all that (too busy going ) and when I left he was still walking Willow over the cones, and Willow was still worried about it, but I knew before they finished, he'd be fine. I couldn't have  asked for a better trainer for my baby.