Rural Heritage April/May 2026

or borrowed many horses that in my opinion weren’t working that well. The reasons for working these less than-ideal horses runs the gamut, but suffice it to say, everything from me being cheap to me trying to be helpful, to everything in between has played a part. These horses have been everything from green and inexperienced to nervous to ready to run away. As I have mentioned many times already in my previous articles, I value calmness at work above all else. Would taking the blinders off help some of these horses be calmer? Here are three examples: Let’s start with Bart. Bart was a spirited Suffolk-cross gelding that was pretty nervous in harness sometimes. Bart had a very good matching partner that was a lot calmer. I was trying to use him at work and help settle him for a friend. One day at work we were unspooling fence wire with a forecart and a team of horses. That can be tricky for any horse as we keep touching the fence and making what they see in front of them move while whatever touched it is out of sight. It is also light work with funny noises. Bart really didn’t like it, so much so that I was afraid we needed to stop in order to avoid an accident. This horse was clearly upset by what he couldn’t see, but would seeing it make it better? The next day I drove him in a different bridle without the blinders for the first time, and he seemed fine. Before long, we were again using them to complete the fencing job, and, to my amazement, he was fine — a completely different animal. He worked that way in farming and driving for the rest of his life. I give this example not to suggest that it will be this way for all horses, because it won’t. Bart is an example of what is possible for some horses. I have never met another horse that so clearly wanted the blinders off and excelled without them from the first step. Rock is a 14-year-old gelding I have owned for three years. When I bought him along with two other horses, they had been standing in pasture for six years. Prior to that, they had been trained and driven some, but maybe not much, and it had certainly worn off in the intervening years waiting for a passerby to give them an apple. These were hard horses to put back to work. The best two I sold within a few months to recoup my investment, and Rock has been an ongoing project ever since. He is the best big, timid, shy, reluctant work horse I have ever had. He can be nervous or afraid, but, with careful use and time and good handling, he has

Open-faced Suffolk stallion Red Oak.

improved a lot. I recently noticed after two years he has mostly stopped grinding his teeth while working, which he did constantly in the beginning. For the first year and half I probably worked him six months with blinders and six months without. I was always just looking for one thing: when was he more relaxed? For the last year and half, I have just worked him open faced. He can work on any piece of farm equipment, and, if I am careful, he can be driven or handled by anyone I am teaching. In my opinion, a horse like Rock has achieved about all he can. He will never be the boldest or calmest in my hitch. He responds very well to a little extra time and space when asking for anything. He wants to know he is safe. I do see his eye on me from time to time while we work, but his head has slowly rotated to the front and has slowly come down. He has never threatened to run away from anything. He may well have ended in the same place with blinders on, but I just got to the point where I felt he was better without them than with them. He spread more than 50 loads with a manure spreader this fall without blinders and did fine.

April/May 2026

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