Ground driving is a big part of riding (or, obviously, driving/pulling) prep for our young Mustangs at Wild Horse Outreach & Advocacy .
Here are Spur (4yo bay roan Stewart Creek WY Mustang gelding), Rock (4yo pangare bay Little Colorado WY Mustang gelding) and Firefly (2yo buckskin Bible Springs UT Mustang filly) during some of our ground driving adventures.
Spur and Rock are already being ridden. I still find ground driving out and about valuable to prevent buddy/barn sourness without my sometimes nervous self up there, and it lets them find their feet without a rider as their bodies continue to develop.
I often turn ground driving into double lungeing on the fly, asking them to trot and lope large circles out in the open (we practice that somewhere enclosed first, otherwise they can get pretty confused), also a great balance and confidence building exercise.
We get 6 months of winter, plus mud season, plus monsoon season (2nd mud season). Ground driving is a great way to work horses while keeping warm when it’s extra chilly out. The fact that it’s a big step towards sledding for fun and skidding logs for firewood is a nice bonus.
I can navigate questionable footing more safely from the ground when I’d be hesitant to ride, especially a green horse.
As for Firefly, she’s learning voice commands and getting used to leaving her buddies, accepting the bit, steering, stopping, backing and standing quietly and having ropes all around her.
She ponies well and has worn several kinds of saddles, including the pack saddle. Once she gets some miles of packing even just tires under her belt, starting her under saddle is going to be a non-issue. That’s how I like it.
I’m not going to lie, I can be a wimp when it comes to starting colts. I only do it because I want to know what I’ve got and what the horse knows, not what someone else tells me. When I take them all the way from unhandled to under saddle, I get a pretty good idea of what they’re going to be like.
That being said, there are days where I don’t feel like riding a colt. Or not that colt. Or not the second colt on a long day of gentling wild horses on a hot/cold/windy day. Sometimes I ground drive in the morning and ride at night, or vice versa.
Either way, and at any stage of training, ground driving can be a fun and useful way to change things up and spend quality time with our horses. It makes for neat photo opportunities too.
*These 3 are not available. We have gentled Mustangs looking for their person at all times.*
