One Week Behind the Plow: A Greenhorn Goes to Draft-horse School

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One by one, each of us tried to imitate what Rod had made look so easy (but what I quickly discovered, when it came my turn, is no cinch): Slip Sharon's collar over her neck and fasten the strap tight (the collar is surprisingly heavy and unwieldy, while the horse's neck is as big around as I am!)... lift the harness off its hook near the stall, first slipping your right arm under the spider and back band, next hoisting the spider onto your right shoulder, and then lifting the hames up and off the hook with both hands (I feel as though the harness is a web and I'm the fly)... heft the harness, hames first and then the back band and spider and brichen, onto Sharon (the harness must weigh at least 35 pounds, and the horse's back is almost over my head). . . then fasten the straps and bands and buckles tight, in proper order (let's see; first, pull the bottom hames strap taut, then clip the breast band to the hames ring, next buckle the belly band, then . . . what is that quarter strap doing over there?).

For the next hour or so, we repeated the procedure, over and over, using Sharon and her partner, Cora, both of whom stood patiently as we put the harnesses on and took them off, put them on and took them off. By the time Rod announced we should be heading back to the bunkhouse for lunch, we were harnessing the horses like pros . . . well, semi -pios (well, semi -semi-pros).

We spent the first hour or two after lunch learning to ground-drive Sharon and Cora . . . that is, we practiced driving the two horses, hitched side by side, around the corral while walking behind them. I hadn't expected this to be easy, but I didn't know how right I was until I tried it.

The horses are steered by two long leather lines (calling them reins, I discovered to my embarrassment, is a horrendous faux pas). Each line is forked to form a Y. One end of the left line's Y is snapped to the left horse's left bit ring, and the other end of the Y to the right horse's left bit ring. The right line is rigged the same way, only in reverse, so that its ends are clipped to the right bit rings. Thus, when you pull one line, both horses feel the command on the same side of their mouths and turn in that direction. If you pull back evenly on the lines, they stop.

Plus, of course, you give verbal commands at the same time you manipulate the lines. "Whoa" for stop and "giddup" for go are simple enough to remember, but I discovered that "gee" (pronounced as in "gee whiz") for right and "haw" for left are frustratingly easy to confuse. (Sharon and Cora displayed admirable tolerance on the several occasions when I pulled on the left line and said "gee," or the reverse.)

The really difficult part, though, is maintaining just the right amount of tension on the lines. The horses are amazingly responsive; the slightest movement of your hands elicits a reaction, so unless the signals you communicate through the lines are clear and consistent, you end up in a mess. If you don't give as much slack on one line as you take in on the other when turning, the horses get mixed signals and each tends to go in a somewhat different direction. If you want the team to go straight but fail to keep a constant, even pressure on the lines, you'll find yourself weaving right and left as the horses try to figure out just exactly where you do want them to go. And if you let the lines go completely slack, you relinquish control of the team entirely . . . and the horses are likely to drive you.

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