MDDA.info

for some reason unknown to me i found myself on a ‘page’ listing drivers and total miles cumulative for mdda and didn’t see my name,belle’s or our miles anywhere. seemed to show everyone who was ever in mdda. i just figured out going to 2009 totals was easiest so did that. but wow, jac, i’m impressed w/your tallying since my query. do we give ruth credit for the idea? Thanks to both of you!

hi,
i’m wondering where to look for my miles total for 2009 driving w/Belle?

Ooops; I better clarify. I meant harness quick hitch couplers as used on harness racing saddle.

I’d like to know more about quick hitch couplers.

I’d  like to see pictures of them in use and want to understand the dynamics of them.

I’ve read there are swivel and non-swivel versions too.

Susan

Steve Wood, a driving trainer and owner of Wild Wood Sleigh and Carriage in Minnesota, is sharing this experience in hope that it will stimulate thinking a provide some ideas on how an accident could be prevented.

According to Steve this is the first incident/accident in 35 years of training and it occurred while driving his own experienced pair to give a trainee experience with a pair.

Following is the text of his letter:

Cherrie and I had a driving accident and here’s what we are doing about it.

This past Saturday Cherrie spent the first of several nights in intensive care at a hospital in the Twin Cities. While lying awake that night I replayed 30 seconds of the afternoon over and over in my mind. I have made several decisions about how I will change my driving routine to avoid a repeat of that 30 seconds in the future.

While thinking of what Cherrie might be going through, it occurred to me that I had read in a driving club newsletter that she had a new driving pony at my barn. We have been working on preparing a future CDE prospect for her. My immediate thought was that folks who hear of Cherrie’s hospital stay would assume that Cherrie and her new horse had a driving accident. That did not happen!!

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED:

Cherrie was driving one of my teams to get some pairs experience. I was seated next to her. We drove a trail through the trees, out in open for a short time, and then came back to the buildings. Cherrie then made an expert stop at a spot where my teams have stopped perhaps hundreds of times. As I stepped down from my seat, I turned and walked to the back of the wagon to unload some cargo, but never touched the back of the wagon. In the space of a few moments my right hand horse reached over to her teammate and rubbed off her bridle, jerked her head up high, and immediately bolted to the left. The team, the wagon, and Cherrie were traveling at full speed away from me. They were headed for some thick trees where there was no trail. The team dove into the trees and turned a sharp right. The springy wagon seat ejected Cherrie. The team and wagon continued for about another 30 seconds, diving onto trails and off through small trees.

Seeing family headed for Cherrie, I ran to cut off the team. Now I have not tried to run this fast for about 25 years, add the winter boots and small trees, and I went tail over teakettle. I got up and started sprinting off in a new direction. The team was now headed across an open field. As I was getting closer, it was apparent that both horses were now without bridles.

They began to slow down, then stopped when I hollered “NOW STAND”. I thank the Lord Above for that. Cathy envisions of a wall of angels. I can just see a row of stern faced winged creatures with their hands pushed toward the team saying, “You shall not pass”. Stopping probably had little to do with me hollering.

They stood while I and two passersby from the road (more angels) disconnected them from the wagon and collected lines and bridles that were dragging behind them. They lead off fairly quiet when asked to walk and we went back to the buildings.

Family had called for an ambulance by the time I got to Cherrie. Having recovered from getting the wind knocked out of her, we began to concentrate on her tender knee and shin. The ambulance crew checked Cherrie, gave some ice packs, talked about her tender tummy, and drove away. So we sent Cherrie on her way home to rest.

Fast forward several hours.

Cherrie calls from the emergency room while waiting for an ambulance ride to the intensive care unit at North Memorial Hospital. Immediately after driving home, Cherrie experienced severe pain in her abdomen, called an ambulance and the same ambulance crew came to her home, gave her a ride to a local hospital where they found that her spleen was bleeding. Trees are a very hard landing pad.

By Tuesday, Cherrie had impressed many doctors with her healing powers and was already out of intensive care! Cherrie and I have discussed the lessons we have learned and want to share them with you.

Cherrie’s 9 year old niece hit the Lesson Learned nail right on the head. “If you don’t have the proper equipment for driving- you shouldn’t drive your horse.” I have a thought on equipment to propose to all of you, but first Cherrie and I have some procedural changes we will make that we want to share with you.

We both have learned that the groom or helper for the pair needs to go directly to the heads of the horses as soon as they stop. Teams will usually try to rub heads together as soon as they come to a halt. If I had stepped to the heads of the horses as soon as I got off the wagon, I would have seen them rub, would have scolded them, and put any leather back into place that the team had displaced. The groom needs to be quick. My team did not take 10 seconds from the command to stop until they removed a bridle, probably closer to 5 seconds.

A pair driver needs to be aware of the need and be prepared with line handling techniques to discourage heads from getting together. Any time in the future I go to a commercial job with a pair, I will have a helper stationed at the location where I expect to stop the pair. The moment the pair stops, the helper will be at the heads. No climb down time.  If we do a parade, we will have two walkers. Parades always come to a stop several times.

Now for the equipment proposal.

Most of us have heard of the Gullet Strap. It can be used to connect the throatlatch and the noseband of most carriage bridles. It’s effective for keeping the bridle in place and I have recommended it many times. However most farm /draft bridles do not have a full noseband and there is no way to use a gullet strap. That is the case with my bridles. Then what do we do? We could add a noseband. However I feel there is an even better option.

About a year ago I read a magazine article that described remolding a farm bridle to build a double crown bridle. Now there is a harness builder in Iowa who is building new bridles with this double crown available as an option. I bought one new pair of bridles for my most commonly used team a few months ago. This second crown has it’s own throatlatch that can be tightened around a smaller area of the throat of the horse. This second crown can catch the bridle if the primary crown is pushed over the ears.

I have 10 bridles, so unfortunately I have not bought new double crown bridles for the whole herd.  I won’t use a single crown bridle anymore. Fortunately, this harness maker, and I suspect others also, make an adapter to add to your bridle to create a double crown bridle.

Jeff and Ginny Pomije at http://www.bigblackhorse.com/equine.html are my contact to the harness maker that builds these adapters. The adapters use a replacement brow band so you may need to do some measuring, but the additional security is well worth the effort.

Revised Headstall 1

Revised Headstall 2

Headstall partially off 1

Headstall partially off 2

Note that even though the bridle’s bit is not in the usual position, it is still in the horse’s mouth.

Single driving horses are not immune to bridle removal. They can catch the end of the shafts, rub on trailers or buildings, or they can even catch a post on a hazard during a CDE. So please add this double crown to all bridles. If you honestly can’t afford one, I’ll help you get one. I think they are a wonderful innovation.

Lesson Learned #1 ***If you don’t have the proper equipment, you shouldn’t drive a horse. Helmet, gloves, bridle, harness, and I am even looking into protective vests. It all makes good sense.

Lesson Learned #2 ***Helpers should get to the horse’s head as soon as possible after pulling to a stop. Drivers need to be aware of line handling techniques that will discourage the horse from messing with their heads.

Lesson Learned #3 ***If someone brings an ambulance for you, go with the ambulance to a hospital and get checked out thoroughly.

On Thursday Cherrie was released from the hospital. She is on her way to recovery. It will take some time.  CDE’s and her new pony, Lady, are in the near future, and for that reason I may be the luckiest guy around. Praise the Lord for his army of angels and medical personnel that have done what they do best these past few days.

I will document the recovery process for the horses that were involved in this incident. I firmly believe they will be good and comfortable driving horses again.  The challenges, reasoning, and progress will be in another letter.

Sing loud, talk to your maker, and have a blessed Christmas.

Steve Wood

Wild Wood Sleigh and Carriage.

I want to thank Steve for sharing this story and his solutions.

Wishing Cherrie a quick and complete recovery. Thank goodness it wasn’t worse!

We should all gain insight from this experience.  Some lessons are that s**t happens (even with very experienced horses), lose of the bridle can be catastrophic, bridles can be rubbed off and grooms have a very important function.

Please feel free to share your thoughts.

A heads up for all drivers.

UMECRA is creating a photo book featuring highlights from the 1st 40 years of UMECRA.  Driving has been a part of UMECRA since 2001 and I submitted a few photos from each year that we have participated.  (Don’t know how many or which ones were included … has to be element of surprise!)

Here is the pitch from the UMECRA coordinator, Douglas Palme.

It is being produced in Italy and the order will be submitted right after the convention.  It will take several weeks for the book to be printed and mailed to those who order it.
I will be posting some images of the book in the next few days (gotta get down to the new studio and shoot them), it comes with a very nice album box to keep it dirt and dust free, with it you will receive a copy of the dvd that will be playing at the convention showcasing the 40 year history with hundreds of photos, interviews, and other documents, and we’ll even give you a copy of the very first minutes of the very first UMECRA board meeting…..now how’s that for a sweetener?

The book is a handcrafted Italian photobook, the cost is only $69.95 plus shipping.

This will not be make available again, so once the convention ends Sunday night that’s it, no more chances and no exceptions will be made — ok I’ll make an exception if you want to pay $495.95

All net proceeds are going back to UMECRA to help defray the operational costs, so please consider helping the organization and own a piece of history as well!

Douglas Palme
dpalme@dougpalme.com
http://www.dougpalme.com
(217) 306-1313

Stay tuned, I’ll post any photos and additional information as it becomes available.

I don’t know about you, but I’m calling Doug and placing my order!

Hi All,

I’ve gotten great responses to my cart-wheel query. I’m fact gathering and mulling so if anyone has yet to chime in I’d love to hear from you.

Jac:  would like to see that cart, for sure

Alice: great information about your marathon sturdy wheels.

Tony: beefin’ up the easy entry; fantastic idea! okay, i do believe in Santa

Katz/Gary; encouraging input that there might be a cart around the corner

One more thought; I do know that I want a cart carrier set up like Nate/Tammy and Rick have  no matter the cart, wheels or otherwise…

Gratefully, Susan

Jac; thanks for the info on the wheels. Did some internet searches and wasn’t coming up with anything. Went to a local Amish fellow but cost prohibitive!

So short of buying a cart for next year I’m wondering:

Alice and Ray; where did you get your carts?!

Tony; you had wheels adapted for competition?

Thanks! Susan

The discussion at the Annual Meeting prompted some thoughts that I would like to offer up for discussion.

First:   Dr. Ketover’s remarks on how well our horses score makes me wonder if we are not scaring off potential drivers when we emphasize conditioning at clinics and in our discussions.  There is no question that conditioning becomes critical to success at longer distances but maybe we should encourage more drivers to give our sport a ‘test’ drive without being overly concerned with conditioning.

I think it is probably safe to say that most of us weren’t sure about our enthusiasm for the sport until we had actually participated.  If I am right our primary problem is to get potential drivers to give the sport a try.

I honestly believe that any horse that is not lame or sick can successfully complete a 6 mile drive.  If that drive were organized to offer an experienced driver or drivers as mentor I suspect a lot of the trepidation might be removed for a lot of ‘recreational drivers’.   The horse could be evaluated and allowed to walk if there were any real concern.

This supervision is difficult to accomplish with the current format of sending drivers at 5 minute intervals, but would be much easier to accommodate if the ‘novice’ drive actually was conducted as a group event.  As a group an experienced driver, either driving his own horse or participating as a groom with a novice driver could be installed in the lead with a second experienced driver bringing up the rear.  In this way the group of novices would be under surveillance throughout the drive and the technical details could be explained and/or illustrated.

A second factor that could influence a new driver is the timing of the drive.  As a novice, questioning the desirability of the sport, overnight camping is probably a distraction.  To provide the greatest opportunity the novice event should be scheduled for after noon.  With a drive lasting only about an hour and no holds a late start should not be a handicap, plus it could allow the experienced drivers the opportunity of driving their competition in the morning and still be available to mentor the novice in the afternoon.

Obviously, such an event is not appropriate at every event, but it might be promoted at one or two events each year.

Second:  A fair amount of discussion was directed at the difference between CDE and distance driving.  A couple of the differences noted were the opportunity for more competition at CDE (specifically 3 events) and the ability for spectators at dressage, cones and at least some hazards which allows the competitors to observe each other.

Adding cones was discussed, but the big negative is the lack of adequate space at most events.

As I thought about this I remember being asked several years ago to conduct a presentation on driving for the riders at Endless Valley.  This demo was conducted in the indoor arena and I don’t recall much feedback.  On the other hand it does illustrate that at least some riders are curious about driving.

Can we devise some spectator friendly competitions for our drivers?

One thought that seems compatible with driving and would serve to aid drivers while offering some friendly ‘competition’ could be a timed head to head competition harnessing, putting to, drive around a very short course (the parking lot or a part of it) at a walk (for safety), unhitch and remove the harness.  For safety, each competitor would complete the course before the next competitor.  It’s simple, takes little time (perhaps 8 to 10 minutes each), could be performed ‘in camp’ where everyone could watch, and practices a skill applicable to competitive driving.  We could not ask the event managers to sponsor such an event, but MDDA might offer some token prizes and perhaps even year end recognition.

Another thought is actually including a cones competition.  This would depend on the event and its schedule, but my thought is to set up a series of cones on a camp driveway rather than in a separate field.  The course would not be terribly complex due to the lack of space but it could incorporate a serpentine with a turn around and running back through the same course.  As a timed event, with penalties for down balls, it just might be a popular spectator sport for the riders and would demonstrate some of the skills utilized in driving.   Again this would have to be coordinated with ride managers but could be sponsored by MDDA with appropriate awards.  Difficulty could be increased by making the course ‘tight’ based on the wheel width of the participants, but this would slow down the competition by the need to reposition the cones.  Note:  I do have a full set of 20 cones, with balls and a wheeled carrier that I would offer to support this activity. This setup is easy to handle and requires a minimum of space (in your trailer) to accommodate.

What say you?