Working Smokey - The Accidental Smallholder

Posted: Friday 10 June, 2011

by Rosemary at 9:17pm in Equines 2 comments Comments closed

Well, almost. Smokey and I had a session with Steve yesterday. We longreined him a bit, then put him to our homemade swingle tree and let him drag that around for a bit - over the paths as well so it was nice and noisy and bouncy. That went fine, so Steve attached a rope to the swingle tree and put a bit of drag on it so Smokey had to work a bit harder. At that point, the steering got a bit hit or miss, but Smokey was great.

We have a log with rings on, for pulling. It has wooden battens down each side to stop it rolling. It was in the barn, so we let Smokey pull it to the field we were working in - again, nice and noisy on the stone path.

We worked around the field with that, in and out of the clumps of rushes (?). The only time Smokey spooked (and it was 'head up and stop for a look") was when a bird flew out of the hedge. He did stop when the log got caught in a dip in the groud but went on when asked. Steve then started putting drag on the log, to make the pony work harder. Again, the steering got a bit wonky but we'll work on that. Had we been ploughing, our furrow woudl have been like a dog's leg.

Finally, he got to see and hear the harrow. Steve walked behind him rattling chains, to simulate the harrow too. So next session, he's pulling the harrow.

I now need to work on turning tight. He's pretty nimble for a big pony, but he needs to learn to turn by pivoting on his hindquarters.