Driving advice please - What's the next step after long reining?

[Sarah_Sayers]

Hello everyone,

Willow has been doing really well, I'm fairly certain this is not new to her. I've been long reining her round the village in her harness (inc blinkers) and she is cool as a cucumber, and it's even easy to keep her out in the middle of the road. I think it's time to be considering the next step..... but what is it?

I was thinking about getting her to pull a tyre, seems to be something people do as part of the training. Any tips on this? Do I just secure a pole behind her with the tracers and attach tyre to this?

Any advice gratefully recieved, many thanks,
Sarah and Willow. x

[popularfurball]

Yep tyre next, not sure on how though sorry!

[Wally]

You need a tyre with another person on a quick release mechanism, so if she panics you can slip the tyre before she gets a fright. I am sure Frances did our Hill to harness article on her blog, it's all there with how to attach the tyre so it won't wear a rope out and stuff like that.

hang on I'll go and look you a link out,

http://shetlandponyeverything.poster...rness-articles

[natural horse]

Yes tyre next, although I am no expert on driving! I decided to see how my pony, from Ireland, took to driving. She was used to traffic etc as she had been ridden all over with my granddaughter. I am sure she had been driven before because within a couple of hours she had pulled a tyre, then two, been put to the cart and hitched up and my granddaughter had driven her up and down the driveway a few times. She had to turn tightly to negotiate the turn on the narrow road but instinctively knew how to do it.

[Sarah_Sayers]

Thanks for the tips guys, Wally, that blog is brilliant, thanks for digging the link out for me. Love the way it's all broken down into stages, and I'm really excited about trying the next step. Those Shetlands are just the cutest.