Our Vehicle Purchase and Use Mistakes

In articles past, I have talked about our harness purchase and fitting mistakes, our equipment care mistakes, and even our communication mistakes, as well as other issues.  I haven’t yet addressed our vehicle mistakes. 

When we first started out, we, like other people, had a lack of available expendable cash.  We were on a tight budget, and buying horse equipment was a splurge.  So, of course, we didn’t want to spend a lot.  Unfortunately, this meant that we were stuck with some pretty ill-suited, uncomfortable, and cheaply made stuff.  Looking back, we made do with what we could afford, but we could have made some better choices from the beginning.  However, forty years ago, it was harder to find good used equipment than what it is today, with the advancement of the internet and social media.  Now, its not nearly as hard to find equipment.  In the past, we just had the classifieds and maybe a local farm auction if we were lucky! 

The first vehicle our family bought was an antique top buggy, what a lot of people would [incorrectly] call a “doctor’s buggy”.  A top buggy is a very common vehicle, like the Chevy Impala.  Every town had a carriage builder who made them, and almost every family had one, so they aren’t particularly special vehicles.  The one my mom bought was well-restored and in good condition, but without a well-trained horse to pull it, it sat in the garage under a sheet most of the time. (We didn’t have a farm at the time. We lived in a subdivision in town and boarded our horse.)  At the time, we didn’t know there was such a thing as a horse that wouldn’t drive, and we apparently had one of them.  Not only did we not have a driving horse, but we had no idea what “cut-under” was.  Top buggies are not novice horse or driver vehicles because the wheels can hit the box in a tight turn.  They are not cut-under, where the wheels can go under the box of the vehicle, making for a larger turning radius.  My mom tried to train our quarter horse to drive with the help of some other people in our boarding barn, but he wasn’t having it.  After dealing with a wreck before a local parade where that green horse reared up and the shafts broke before the parade, my mom and her friend put the horse back in the trailer, and pulled that buggy through the parade on foot themselves.  The next week, they ended up pictured on the front page of the local newspaper, dressed in their prairie-style dresses with the parasol my grandma created for the event open on the seat of the buggy.  My mom sold that buggy eventually, but I don’t know where or for how much. (In my defense, I was about age 11 at the time, so I didn’t have a lot to do with that purchase.)  That horse never drove again.

Fast forward about 20 years.  The next cart my family bought when we were finally in a position to have a good driving horse was a cheaply made metal pony cart.  It had just about zero leg room and no seat cushion.  I think my mom paid more to have a bright red upholstered seat cushion made than the cost of the rest of the cart!  (I don’t know why cheap carts always have red seats…red is such a tacky color for seats, but I digress.) Actually, we had two of these carts, I think each was bought at an auction for $60 or so. One was Horse size and the other Pony size, but my stepfather cut off and rebent the shafts to fit our mini. I showed with that cart in open shows, and my younger brother showed it in 4-H.  His legs were so long, that he had to sit splay legged.  We didn’t put an apron on him because they were optional for 4-H and with his legs that wide, it just looked sillier than if we left it off. 

The horse size cart had awful rusty cart wheels, so I got the great idea to just go buy brand new shiny chrome bicycle wheels to replace the ones on the cart.  They looked great, but I didn’t know there was a difference between horse cart wheels and bicycle wheels.  We went to a show with our newly-broke-to-drive pinto Arabian horse who was a saint.  The judge told us that he was impressed with how much our horse trusted us, but that the wheels on our cart shouldn’t be used.  They flexed in and out at every corner.  It didn’t take me long to realize the same thing, but I was hoping they would hold out to get through the show.  We made it through, and never used those wheels again.  It was then that I learned that horse cart wheels are different than bicycle wheels that aren’t made for the sideways stress that a cart puts on them.  I could have put that money towards a better cart!

The next family cart was one of those cheap easy entry carts.  My mom bought it brand new and I think it was about $400.  While we put a lot of miles on that cart, and it looked considerably better than the old crappy cart I mentioned above, I didn’t realize how bad the suspension was until we got better carts much later in our driving career.  My mom still had that cart twenty years later or so, and I drove her horse in it a few years ago.  I just about slid out the side of it going around a corner because I forgot how slippery the seats were!   Our newer, more comfortable, and better sprung carts have leg room to put you in a more stable driving position, seats that grip and hold you in, and suspension that doesn’t rattle your back apart so much that you need to go to the chiropractor the next day!  My mom now has a good mini cart, too, which she calls her “Cadillac”. 

Once I was out on my own, out of college, and married, my husband and I had the opportunity to purchase a Meadowbrook cart from the lady down the street.  It was a really good cart, well-made, and fit our horse well.  It was actually the reason she was selling it.  The cart was made for horses around 15.2-16 HH, and she had 14.2 horses.  The owner also physically struggled getting into the rear-entry Meadowbrook.  The caveat was that it needed a new finish.  So, we bought the cart, took it apart, sanded it down, and brushed on clear gloss Spar urethane.  The finish turned out decent, but not nearly as well as when we refinished some wood vehicles later, and used an airless sprayer to apply the finish.  I wouldn’t consider purchasing that cart a mistake.  We used that cart in our early carriage shows for a number of years and did respectably. 

Later, we were at an auction and came across another Meadowbrook, this one painted burgundy and missing a seat.  We sanded that vehicle down, too, and stained it a complementary color to go with our horse.  I didn’t understand why I didn’t like driving that cart until I finally realized that the springs needed to be replaced.  They had enough wear that they were quite squishy.  This made the cart sit lower, and put me in a shorter position when trying to drive that big horse. I had to hold my hands at an exaggerated position to keep the reins on the horse’s rear.  My husband drove it fine because he was taller.  He did actually win Turnout in that cart, but I hated driving it.  We learned a lot about building and refinishing vehicles while working on that cart, but it wasn’t a particularly special vehicle.

Eventually, my husband wanted to start driving in Combined Driving Events. That pinto Arabian had done well in the carriage Pleasure Driving shows, and the challenge of CDEs intrigued Chad.  We came across a used marathon (wagonette-style) vehicle that was for sale.  It was a good brand that was in good shape at a decent price.  It also rode really well.  What we didn’t know was that at about 550-600 lbs. (which is why it rode so nicely), it was technically too heavy for our gelding.  While he was tall, he wasn’t a stout horse.  He probably weighed about 900 lbs.  What he lacked in strength, he made up for in stamina and heart.  He was also about 20 years old when we started CDEs with him.  He probably needed a vehicle that was around 425-450 lbs. at his age.  However, in those first couple of years of CDEs, he was very cooperative and seemed to enjoy the activity while we were performing.  Looking back, we probably didn’t do good enough aftercare after training and events, and he possibly sored up.  The conditioning necessary for CDEs required us to work him more than we had ever worked him before.  That, coupled with the heavy vehicle, eventually soured him on driving.  Our once super-cooperative, do-anything-for-you gelding got to the point where he would actually be “naughty” when we went to put him to the vehicle.  He was trying to tell us that he was done.  We eventually listened and retired him.  If we only knew then what we know now.

A couple years later, we saw an ad for another lightly used marathon vehicle, this one built for a pair of minis.  It was in like-new condition and had only been driven a couple of times.  While it worked to get us in the show ring with our pair of minis, it wasn’t necessarily a well-made vehicle.  What started out as a quiet carriage transformed within a year into a noisy, bangy, clangy, rattly, rough vehicle that we couldn’t stand to drive.  I kept asking Chad to tighten it so that it didn’t make so much noise and didn’t ride so rough, but he said that there wasn’t anything he could do about it.  The metal had fatigued and loosened the bolts to the point where no tightening was going to help.  We eventually transformed the carriage into a pony single vehicle, and Chad used it at a few CDEs.  At one show, he had basically lightly tapped a post in a hazard and the shafts bent.  It definitely was a cheaply made vehicle.  In marathon vehicles, you get what you pay for.  We now drive very well-made vehicles with which we have very few problems, if any, and they are just as quiet now as when they were new.  If you get a good vehicle to start, you will drive more because you enjoy it.  If you purchase a cheap vehicle, you won't like driving it, and you just won't drive.  Ask us how we know (or just reread the paragraph above).

A few years ago, we decided to order a marathon vehicle so that we could drive both single and pair.  Chad loves driving pairs, and we had a very athletic mother and son duo that we wanted to drive.  The caveat was that either young, spry, ambitious horse could, and did, pull that 500 lb. vehicle by themselves.  It was an awesome vehicle, but it was way too light for that pair!  When we did drive the pair to it, only about twice, it was like having a V8 engine in a VW Bug!  It felt like that pair just threw that vehicle around, it was so squirrelly!  And we had two adults on the navigator platform while Chad lightly rode the brake the entire time trying to create drag!   That pair actually needed a much heavier vehicle because they were such ambitious pullers.  So, just because you want to drive both single and pairs doesn’t mean that you can use the same vehicle and just switch out the shafts for the pole.  It normally doesn’t work that way.  If the vehicle is light enough for a single horse, it may be way too light for a pair, depending on the horses.  If it is heavy enough for a pair, it may be way too heavy for a single.

Our most recent “interesting” vehicle purchase came while perusing a local on-line auction.  We bid on a wooden pony cart without actually going to see it, because we figured with what we paid for it, we could part it out and recoup our “investment” if it didn’t work out for what we wanted to do with it.  When we picked it up, we were pleasantly surprised that it was actually in pretty decent physical shape, although it didn’t have a good enough finish for a high-end carriage show.  It has ridiculously long shafts, is super wide, has an ugly blue crushed velour seat, and has hardly any leg room, but it makes a great first-time breaking cart!  Those super long shafts are great to keep the pony’s legs away from the driver, and the axle is so wide that it is pretty stable.  It has to be one of the ugliest wooden carts I have seen, though.  It even came with a spring vertically welded to the axle that is used as a functional whip socket!  I wouldn’t call it a purchase mistake because we didn’t pay a whole lot for it, and we have used it for what we intended.  However, Chad has still yet to drive it because he refuses to sit splay-legged, or kiss his knees with the lack of leg room!  It’s just ugly.

As of the publishing of this article, we own sixteen carriages; some antiques, some reproductions, some modern, some singles, some pairs, some training vehicles, some strictly show vehicles, some in need of restoration, and some fully restored. Carriage collecting can be addicting, like eating potato chips.  It’s a really good idea to research what you want to do before ever searching for a carriage to purchase.  Just because the one down the street is nearby, available, and cheap doesn't mean that it will be a great fit for you and your horse.  Save that money for a carriage that will serve you well for years to come, and be safe for you to drive at the level you are driving.