Has anyone ever had success teaching an older horse to pull a cart?

Question

I have a 22 year old gelding that I no longer ride but I would like to train him to pull a cart. What do you think?

Answer 1

it can be done. I however tried this when i was 13 yeah i know not a great idea at 13 anyhow i did it! my horse didnt like the idea so much and ended up not working - but if you do everything right i dont see why not. Good luck!

Answer 2

He is 22 year olds come on, why make him pull a horse at that age.

Let him retire and frolic in the fields all day before he dies.

Answer 3

if you do it correctly and start with lots of long reining and putting a harness on him so he gets used to that i see no problem. start by getting him to pull a car tyre behhind him so he gets used to the noise and the pull. this sounds dengerous but this is how 2 of my horses were broken to drive and they are brilliant now. we recently tried to break a 10 year old welsh A mare but sehs having non of it due to stubborness and she cant get used to being long reined but go with slow steps and it whould work :)

Answer 4

I haven't personally but I helped with the training of an 18 year old arabian mare to learn to pull a cart. You can do it, but it's all subjective upon the personality of the horse. If you have a horse that is real real skiddish (like my old guy was) I doubt you'll be able to accomplish it, BUT that doesn't mean you can't try.

Begin by ground-driving him and work your way up from there. Recruit a trainer for the first real "under cart" work, if you aren't very good at training to carriage drive.

Yes, you can train a horse just about anything at any age - subjective, of course, to their personality and their experiences. The only reason I doubt my old horse could have done it was because he was almost 30, scared to DEATH of things dragging behind him (I worked on this constantly, I admit I was a crazy little kid) and would just spook at random for fun.

We decided to never try it, but our cart pony who is probably 15+ (rescue pony) was scared of EVERYTHING and now drives, but we did recruit a trainer for help with him for the first actual under carriage work. He still is a spazz, however, but that is only because he isn't driven as much as he should be (I just don't have time to harness him up enough).

Go for it, just be safe and make sure you have someone around who knows what they're doing when it comes down to getting ready to hook the horse up.

Edit: Don't forget to take his health into consideration. If he is still a happy horse that seems healthy, go ahead and work on driving him, if he isn't, then I wouldn't consider it. Just note, my horse lived to be 38 years old, so 22 isn't all that old depending upon the horse. Sometimes it's ancient and sometimes it's nothing. :) Good luck

Answer 5

I don't see why not.  I have a 13 year old gelding that's only been ridden 8 years of his life, and I'm teaching him stuff every day!  I would start with driving lines, and reteach him about that (they forget the early stuff so easy! LOL).  You should also teach him "gee" and "haw" at this point.  He should get to the point that you don't have to touch the lines to get him to turn when you say those words.

Then I'd put some poles on either side of him to get him used to those.  It's a whole different world with poles attached to your sides!

I'd be on the lookout for a cheap cart to teach him in, as you don't want to have him panic in a nice $15,000 one.  

If you can find one, get in touch with a driving trainer, or someone who currently drives horses.  I don't know where you live, but where I am we have a thing called "The Draft Horse Classic" every year.  There are TONS and TONS of drivers who are more than willing to talk to you about teaching a horse to drive!