People often ask me if they can drive their horse and how to go about doing so. Next, they ask how long will it take to get them driving.

The answer to these questions are not simply answered. This depends on so many factors. But, I thought I could provide a road map to help get those interested in driving their horses started.

Disclaimer: NOT all horses make great driving horses. However, it is certainly worth exploring as MANY horses do make great driving horses!

Can your horse drive?

The first part to this series of questions is, can your horse drive. If someone is asking this questions, they generally fall into two categories:

1. Your horse has zero driving experience (and usually neither does the one asking).
2. You have been told your horse has driving experience, but have never driven them yourself or seen them driven.

So, lets go over what steps I recommend you take in these two situations:

If your horse has no prior driving experience:

First, you need to learn how to drive yourself.

If you have an equine you would like to drive, but neither of you have any experience, or you do have experience but it has been a long time, I sincerely recommend that you find an instructor to take some driving lessons with who has experienced school horses for you to learn on.

This will, first, allow you to decide if this is something you really enjoy or not. It will also show you how much commitment is truly required without starting by yourself, spending a ton of money when you are not even sure of what equipment you need, and probably making some mistakes along the way.

Learning how to drive requires much more than taking a hold of the lines and driving. You must learn all about:

• The different types of harness and its parts
• How to fit the harness to your equine
• What type of vehicles to use
• How to hitch your vehicle
• How to balance a cart

The list goes on, and we haven’t even gotten to how to drive, or what your horse needs to know to drive!! Now you might be starting to see how complex this sport truly is.

This is NOT in any way meant to deter you, please DO join us in driving our equines!! I merely want to make sure you have a realistic expectation and understand that driving your horse goes way beyond jumping in the cart and heading down the road.

Then, you can start thinking about starting your horse to drive.

If you’ve taken some lessons and fallen in love with driving and still want to start your own horse to drive, there are a couple of ways you could go about doing this:

1. Send your horse to be started by a professional

This would ultimately be the easiest and most likely quickest way for you to have your horse started to drive. Sometimes people do have a hard time finding a trainer local to them who can take on a training client. The driving world is “small”, but very connected. Don’t be afraid to reach out and network to find someone. You could also always vet out trainers and send your horse away to someone farther to at least get them started properly. Just be sure to do your research on training methods, and ask around to make sure whoever you are entrusting your equine to matches your own style of horsemanship.

2. Ask for help in starting your horse to drive at home

Some trainers are willing to help you and your horse along together. You may schedule lessons for them to come out and instruct you on how to start them. This is certainly going to take much longer, and require much more of your own time, but for some it’s all about the journey! And this is a great way to truly know everything that has gone into their training, and better connect with your equine.

Whether you decide to send your horse out for training, or have someone come to you for instruction, it will be most helpful if you can find someone who will support you and your goals even after you are hitched. Someone you can continue lessons with, or who can connect you with someone who can, or even someone who will just be at the ready to help troubleshoot should you face a new challenge with your now driving equine.

If you have been told your horse has driving experience, but have never driven them yourself or seen them driven:

DO NOT hitch them!!

Please please, please — do not hitch a horse you have just been told can drive. Especially if it was a number of years ago, and even more so especially if you do not know what you are doing!

I see it far to often that people are told a horse drives, when in reality they had a very questionable start or haven’t been driven in years, or was just hooked up to a cart with no training, or have been driven in ill fitting equipment and are left sore… the list goes on. I will say I see this happen with miniature horses A LOT. Since they are small, people tend to “get away” with it far more than they should.

So, what should you actually do then? You might have guessed it…

Find a driving instructor who can help evaluate the horses knowledge.

There are a number of things that a good driving horse should know outside of the cart. I touch on just a few of them here in this article. 7 Things to Work on with Your Driving Horse Prospect Before the Harness.

Someone more experienced in working with driving horses can help you determine what your horse knows both on the ground and in the cart, and what, if any, things may need to be worked on before safely hitching to. It is a great idea to first hitch to a travois so that you may more safely evaluate what the horse does or does not know.

Your first steps

The big take away from this article: is if you have a horse that you would like to drive and little to no experience in driving yourself – the safest and smartest thing to do is find an experienced professional who can help you.

This investment is not only going to help you reach your goals sooner AND safer, in the long run it really often is the most cost effective way as well. Rather than spending money on the wrong things and running into a bunch of problems that will cost you more money to fix, you can get it right the first time around.