Driving

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Barry explains how he teaches a pair of Friesian mares to walk calmly on rubber bits and why we are giving this lesson over a short-distance drive. He talks about the importance of horses listening to you, why we drive hard-pulling and hard-mouthed horses in rubber bits and shows how we control horses that are fresh out the stable.
These horses were sent to us because they wanted to go at 90mph everywhere, wouldn't walk out the yard and wouldn't stand still. We are trying to get them to walk on a slack rein just off the voice instead of hanging onto their mouths to get them to stay at a slower pace. Although they are being driven in rubber bits, we still want them to respond mainly off the voice.
As these horses throw their heads up in the air to evade the bit (a habit which can be due to having a severe bit in their mouths to control them previously) we have put a standing martingale on them. We are