[cowgurly02]

My dad and I broke my buckskin mare to drive It did not take long. We ground drove her a bunch more, got her used to the harness, got her pulling a tire along the ground. That took about 2 weeks. Then we hooked her up to a buggy in the arena LOL That was fun...she did not like it at first. Thought it was chasing her. Ran around for a bit at first with us bouncing around in the buggy. Then she settled down. After 3 times of driving her in the arena we took her outside with my cutter (sleigh) and she was fine. We even took her on a 12 mile cutter ralley that year

[harli36]

There are plenty of sites that can help walk you through the steps of training a horse to drive. How long it takes depends on how much training the horse already has under their belt. and what you consider "broke to drive". A horse with little to no training can take over a year a horse that is already completely broke to ride may take as little as 6-8 weeks.

What I consider imperative knowledge for a driving horse is....

-must understand rein comands
-must understand voice comands (walk on, trot on, slow, whoa, gee, haw, stand, back) well enough that you can give the command and need hardly any or none at all rein or whip follow through. You'll want these to be your last line of defense, with the exception of bending aids from your whip. Pretty much the only way to give bending aids is with the whip.
-must be ok with the whip touching ALL parts of the body.
-must be able to hobble well on all 4 legs. This way if there is an accident and the horse gets caught up in equipment they will know not to fight and to stand until someone can help them out of the mess
-be ok with working in between shafts.
-must be able to work comfortably in blinders (not something that is a problem with most horses)
-they should throroughly sacked out
-turn on the haunches(this is how you get your cart turned around in close spaces such as driveways, one lane roads etc.)
-and it's absolutely imperative that driving horses be ok to work in and around traffic, they should be ok, with cars, trucks of all kinds, car horns, tractors, pretty much anything and everything that they may possibly come across on the road. Driving horses are commonly driven on the road so they must be ok with this.

Driving accidents are BAD. So you want a horse that is completely unflappable in at least almost all situations. Many horses IMO are not suitable for driving because of this.

Then we hooked her up to a buggy in the arena LOL That was fun...she did not like it at first. Thought it was chasing her

Yikes! That doesn't sound fun. That's what the blinders are for. That way they can't see the cart following so they don't think they are being chased. Were you using blinders?

Originally Posted by UsaHrsRidr2006

learn "gee" for left and "ha" for right, and whoa to stop

Actually it's opposite Gee is right haw is left.