There are various methods of ponying. Pack animals,
both horse and mule, are essentially being ponied. They are trained to
follow the lead horse, each tied to the one before. The lines are
relatively long, but the animals are not attached solidly to each other. A
breakable link (wire loop, or more commonly twine string) is between each.
The rider holds the lead animal as a coil in hand. Note that the rope is
coiled and the whole coil grasped, so if things go bad the line is not looped
around the hand to wipe out fingers. Pasture mates? Every pack
string I know lives together in a single pasture. It just takes training
and sometimes figuring out a proper order.
I have found a crop to be a useful tool to encourage
the ponied horse to stay back where it belongs. It does help to have
an extra rider to follow and assist during training process.
I guess my bottom line is that it does take training, but
is not beyond the skills that most of us have. Where you want to train the
ponied horse to be depends upon where you go. On our single track forest
trails, they do have to stay behind.
Ed
Ed & Wendy Hauser 2994 Mittower
Road Victor, MT 59875
