Saddle Chariot - working ponies
Posted: Sunday 31 August, 2008
A couple of years ago, my chum, Claire and I "broke" Smokey to drive. I put the word "broke" in inverted commas because I don't like the work and I certainly hope he wasn't "broken". To cut a long story short, all was going swimmingly until we had a freak accident and our respective confidences took a bit of a knock. Shortly after the accident, I was contacted by a chap called Simon Mulholland, who designs, builds and drives (with Henry) the Saddle Chariot www.naturaldriving.co.uk. At the time, we were going off on holiday (July 2007), and I kind of put it on the back burner. Anyway, I had another look at the website a couple of days ago and emailed Simon. He called today and we had a bit of a chat on the phone. I'm hoping we'll eb able to meet up soon.
Unfortunately, Simon seems to have upset some of the conventional driving / horsey fraternity. If you google "saddle chariot", there is a forum that is, in places, completely vitriolic about the saddle chariot and Simon. However, there are also some very supportive posts particularly from the owner of a horse called "American Dreamer".
Anyway, the real reason I'm posting this here is that Simon uses the saddle chariot as a forecart for agricultural equipment. According to Simon, with the addition of a towbar, it can pull anything an ATV can including a harrow, lawn slitter and other stuff I can't remember.
A few folk have posted on the Forums about working ponies, so they might be interested in this. If / when Simon gets up this way, we'll try Smokey in the saddle chariot, so there will be a report from that.
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