Coachman’s Delight Home

When you hear hooves, you naturally think of horses before you'd think of zebras. It's the simplest explanation. When we have training issues with our horses, we don't always use such simple logic. Occam's razor can help!

As of December 15th, I’ve been, for all practical purposes, under house arrest. It’s not what you think, even if you think twice. No, I haven’t been naughty, and no, I don’t have Covid. I’m recovering from some reconstructive surgery on my leg.

Things you should be doing with your horse during the COVID shut-down. Lots of people are spending a lot more time at home than normal. If you have your horses at home, this can equate to a bunch of bonus time to spend with your horses. That's a real silver lining in this difficult time. [...]

Questions Answered! You can watch a recording of my live question and answer session from March 30th, 2020. We talked about collars, marathon times, long lining, getting lazy horses to walk, then getting the hot ones to relax, and more. Check out the full recording plus links to the reference materials and recommended long lines.

When you’re teaching a horse to drive, sometimes everything goes great until it doesn’t. Things may go great in the preliminary work, but then you hit an impasse. Those problems can be mild, as described below. However, if the problems go unchecked, or ignored, they may be a prelude to a runaway. This question was [...]

I've had great teachers to learn from in my life as a carriage driving trainer. Many of them were human. However, some of the best teachers have been horses. The best ones will catching you doing your job right. The other ones will make you better by waiting for you to figure it out.

Is the single jointed bit the root of all evil? Many people shy away from a bit that has been used successfully for generations. What’s bad, and not so bad about a single jointed bit?