This week I made a somewhat epic trip down to Bantry to spend a day learning about working horses, and have a go at driving 2 experienced and patient horses under the tutorage of Sandra (and Tim). In the morning we did a bit of long reining, and looked at harness, and in the afternoon we got stuck in, and pulled a couple of different things – a sled and some chain harrows, before trying our hand at working 2 horses together, and finally some logging.

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Tim’s home made sled is a handy thing indeed, and better than a wheels when on soft ground. You can shift a surprisingly large amount of manure quite quickly, and its a lot less work than barrowing it.

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Here’s me chain harrowing with Flora, who although young, is a seasoned work horse, and very obligingly doing mostly what I asked her to.

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Sandra and Tim have a lovely place down in Ballylickey, and an excellent YouTube channel, which I highly recommend you take a look at. I can’t wait to get back down and explore the whole area more, there are a lot of interesting folk down that way.

Now that I’m back, the task is to get our Rain started. This time last year he went off to Nicky to get started and riding, and he loved the work. I long reined him and then hopped on today and he enjoyed the work. On Saturday, he’s off to begin the next chapter in his education with John McDermott for a couple of weeks, and then with any luck we will be able to get Rain to help haul things around the farm, and maybe even us around the countryside…