[drivingpairs] Tandem Moments

I couldn't agree more with getting someone experienced to help you start in 
Tandem. I was very fortunate to have Camptown Dave as my groom and Sterling 
Graburn as my instructor. My STB girls had pretty much only been driven single 
before we hooked them. We used a marathon vehicle in an indoor with Sterling as 
the whip, I was the passenger and Dave was the able bodied groom standing on 
the back. I have to give lots of Kudos to all the Tandem instructors who are 
willing to take the reins and drive two horses that they don't know Tandem and 
to people like Dave who are very knowledgeable and willing to assist. I was 
quite surprised at how well they caught on to what they needed to do. I did 
find riding my wheeler and longlining the leader before we hooked very 
helpful.It was quite challenging to drive two long strided STB in a small 
indoor. My brain went to mush quite a few times and Katie the leader would stop 
stand cock her foot shake her head and look back at me as if to say "please let 
Sterling drive".

A memorable Tandem moment: I am driving the STB girls around a race track at a 
fairly good clip. I am practicing Achenbach rein handling. Sterling suggests I 
shorten two of my reins and I give a large pull to the wrong two reins. The 
girlies go East -West very quickly and I almost sit the leader on her butt. The 
leader was not happy but stood her ground, just shaking her head. Sterling 
stays completely calm throughout and explains how corrections need to be done 
in small increments with Tandems and which reins to shorten next time. We 
continue around the racetrack without further incident.

Camptown Dave and Wendy Ying also did a superb job of driving the STB girlies. 
I think these horses needed an experienced person driving them first so they 
could learn what was expected of them. I have both trace carriers and a trace 
holder on my leader's harness. The trace carriers are traditional , but the 
trace holders are behind the carriers and actually snap into a ring sewn into 
the traces farther back to keep them held up a little higher. I have to date 
not had a problem even in tight turns with the horses stepping on or under the 
traces but I also have never done an HDT or CDE with them.

Camptown Dave makes a great Tandem harness.

Ansley



----------------------------------------
I am using the free version of SPAMfighter for private users.
It has removed 236 spam emails to date.
Paying users do not have this message in their emails.
Try www.SPAMfighter.com for free now!

Other related posts: