I applaud Stephen Leslies important

new book, a volume that combines

information about good farming and
working with animals. This volume
moves animal power forward yet
another step.
Lynn Miller, from the Foreword

Gene Logsdon,
author of A Sanctuary of Trees
Stephen Leslie demonstrates that draft
horse power is ideally suited to vegetable
market farming. This comprehensive
treatment of the subject provides the
beginner or transitional farmer with the
resources needed to succeed.
Joe Mischka, editor and
publisher, Rural Heritage magazine
The New Horse-Powered Farm is a
thorough and practical book for anyone
considering horse-powered farming.
As a lifelong horse-powered farmer, I
learned a lot from reading this book.
David Kline, founding
publisher of Farming Magazine

$39.95 USD

Getting started with workhorses;

The merits of different draft breeds;
Various training systems for the horse and teamster;
Haying with horses, seeding crops, and raising small grains;
In-depth coverage of tools and systems;
Managing a woodlot, farm economics, education, agritourism,
and more.

Novice teamsters will also learn the basic tools of horse-drawn

tillage and cultivation used for profitable horse-powered farming, with
a spotlight on whole-farm management.
The New Horse-Powered Farm includes profiles throughout of farms
that epitomize some of the exciting new trends in agriculture and
highlights the new and old horse-drawn equipment used for profitable
market gardening, including contributions directly from the farmers
about what works and what doesnt. Leslie includes recent studies
on the economics of horse-powered market gardening and offers a
comparison between horse-, human-, and tractor-powered systems. A
valuable resources section includes contact information for teamster
schools, draft-animal publications, annual events, equipment and tool
manufacturers, parts and repairs, and more.
The New Horse-Powered Farm is a must-have resource for any farmer,
homesteader, or teamster seeking to work with draft power in a closedloop farming system.

Cover design by Melissa Jacobson

Cover images by, clockwise from top left: Stephen Leslie,
Donn Hewes, William Stack, and Jean Cross

Chelsea Green

Chelsea Green Publishing

85 North Main Street, Suite 120
White River Junction, VT 05001
802-295-6300
www.chelseagreen.com

n an era when fuel is a primary concern, draft horses are seen by many
as the solution to small-scale, resilient farming with a closed-loop
system. Horses bring farmers back to the roots of what it means to
work the land and present a viable model for a lasting small farm.
The New Horse-Powered Farm is the first book of its kind, offering wisdom and techniques for using horse power on the small farm or homestead.
This book is not about trying to go back to some idyllic past, writes
author and longtime horse farmer Stephen Leslie in the Introduction.
It is designed to be a manual to help us move a few steps forward to a
more sustainable future.
The New Horse-Powered Farm sets the stage for incorporating draft
power on the farm by presenting necessary information for experienced
and novice teamsters alike, including:

The New Horse-Powered Farm

It may seem strange to link the adjective

ultra-modern with the noun horsefarming, but thats exactly what this
new book does with unimpeachable
justification. The New Horse-Powered
Farm is surely the most detailed and
easily understood compendium of
instruction on how to care for and use
workhorses ever written.

Leslie

With information on draft-powered vegetable and grain production,

working in the woodlot, haying, and whole-farm management

The New

Horse-Powered
farm

Tools and Systems for the Small-Scale

Sustainable Market Grower

Stephen Leslie
Foreword by Lynn Miller

4:

Working with Your Horse

In this chapter we will discuss how to get started with

harnessing and hitching your horses for work. This
basic orientation takes into account not only the practical steps of how to put on the harness, the setup of the
driving lines, how to communicate commands, and so
on, but also treats the mental and emotional preparation required of the horse owner in order to become
an effective teamster. Even for the most pragmatic
personality, a workhorse can never simply be a means
to an end (meaning, just thought of as traction power
to accomplish a farm task). As highly intelligent and
sensitive creatures, horses of necessity engage us in a
relationship. It is in our hands to decide if that relationship will be one characterized by fear and domination
or trust and cooperation.

Natural Horsemanship
These days a new approach to training and working
with horses is catching hold worldwidenatural
horsemanship. On one level, natural horsemanship is a
series of techniques for training horses that is based on
the observation of horses in the wild. It relies on the use
of positive reinforcement to achieve its goals within the
context of round-pen training. This type of innovative,
gentler training has several leading proponentscharismatic and talented horsemen and women who publish teaching materials and conduct clinics nationwide.
Monty Roberts, John Lyons, Pat Parelli, and Buck
Brannaman are a few of the pioneering veterans of
this movement, and Doc Hammill is a Montana-based
veterinarian, farmer, rancher, and teamster who has
applied the principles of natural horsemanship to the
training of draft horses.
On another level, natural horsemanship can be seen
as part of a greater paradigmatic shift seeking to restore
the rupture between the human community and the
natural world, and repairing our damaged ecosystems

and relationships to the animal kingdom. For some of

us, working our land with horses can become the catalyst for entering into a whole new way of living more
gently and wisely upon the eartha way that seeks to
safeguard her precious bounty for future generations.
Working with horses can have a humanizing effect
on the teamster. As sentient beings we cant help but
enter into a relationship with a living, breathing horse
that is going to be profoundly different from our relationship to a tractor. If I become impatient in my work
and abuse or bust a piece of farm machinery then I have
to deal with the economic consequences of my poor
decisiontime and money spent fixing it. If I abuse or
break a farm animal, however, there are moral consequences to face as well. Horses serve as an instant biofeedback mechanism. If I can approach my work in a
calm and collected manner, horses will respond and
perform in kind. If I am empathetic to their needs as
members of the equine species and ask them to work in
a way that takes into account their worldview, I will
achieve much better results than if I simply coerce them
into performing by fear of punishment. A horse that
has been gently persuaded that it is in his own best
interests to be an obedient work partner is also more
likely to comport himself intelligently and to help keep
things safe during the potential crisis moments of an
equipment or harness failure in which the teamster has
temporarily lost control.
Working with horses will help those in need of assertiveness training. To establish a safe partnership we
must treat our horses with kindness but we must also
back that up with firmness. The horse is a large and formidably armed animal, and if he chose to he could do
us great bodily harm in the blink of an eye. If he doesnt
harm us, it is either because he has been cowed into
submission or because he has come to understand that
we are not a threat; at best, it is because he recognizes
us as a dominant herd mate. The dominant herd mate

Working with Your Horse

49

Resting horse colored woodcut by Franz Marc

is not a horse that arbitrarily or cruelly rules over the

other horses; it is a horse that by dint of exceptional wit
and strength helps to ensure the survival of the entire
herd. All horses are instinctually programmed to follow
a dominant herd mate out of their own self-interest.
As horse owners we need to ask ourselves: Would we
rather work with a horse that obeys us out of fear or one
that obeys us out of respect?
Vermont-based horse trainer Neal Perry has said
that there are no hard-mouthed horses. He explains
that if you were to put a horse with a reputation as hardmouthed into a stall next to a horse that is responsive to
the bit, and then sent a veterinarian in to examine them
to see which one has the hard mouth, the vet would not
be able to detect any physical difference between the
two. Neal believes this is because the hard-to-handle
horse does not have a hard mouthwhat it has is a

tense body. The hard-mouthed horse has responded

to heavy-handed training by tensing all its muscles;
in that way it can resist the bit. Often what follows is
an escalating cycle of harsher bits and brutal training
techniques that result in an even more tense horse. The
easy-to-handle horse, on the other hand, has learned to
relax into the pressure of the bit, to keep its body supple
until specific muscle groups need to be engaged for a
particular action. This horse can be handled with the
hands light and sensitive on the lines.

Driving Basics
The art of driving horses calls into play both our rational and our intuitive faculties. The rational part comes
from receiving basic instructions on such practical matters as hand grip, body positioning, and voice

50

The New Horse-Powered Farm

The comfortable grip and the English grip (left to right)

commands. The intuitive part is developed through

repetition and practice, by which you gain an intimate
familiarity with your horse or team.
Driving basics begin with learning to comfortably
handle the lines. There are multiple choices for hand
grips that have been developed both for work and for
the show ring. A full description of them all is beyond
the scope of this book. Personally, I prefer to keep it
simple by working with the comfortable grip, in which
the lines lay in the flat of the palm with the thumbs forward. Gentle line pressure is exerted on both or either
line by flexing the wrists in order to tip the thumbs back
toward your body. Where extra grip strength may be
required, the English grip can be useful. Here the lines
are held in the hands with the pinkie fingers down and
the lines threading up through the finger grip and passing back over the base knuckle of the thumbs.
To maintain good driving form it is important
to keep an upright posture and to extend the arms
slightly out in front of your torso. If the hands are held
too close to the body and you need to suddenly stop
the horses, you then have to gather in line in order to
reestablish full contact with the horses bits. Any lateral
arm movement should be minimal. I like to envision a
narrow box or window in front of me through which
my arms are extended when driving. If I let my hands
do the talking (and the position of my body relative to
the horses when ground driving), then my arms can
remain fairly neutral and relaxed within the confines of
my imaginary window.

When we are driving horses it often becomes necessary to lengthen or shorten the lines. To do this safely
and without risk of dropping a line, hold both lines
firmly in one hand and slide the other hand up or down
to gather in or lengthen the line to be adjusted. Over
time it will become second nature for you to lengthen
or shorten the length of the lines in your hands without
having to think about it.
In the next sidebar well hear again from Donn
Hewes, who earlier in the book introduced us to the
excellent qualities of the mule as a driving animal. Donn
is a tall and powerfully built man (he is employed as a
firefighter when he is not working on his farm), and it
would be easy to assume that his success in managing
Northland Sheep Dairy with horses and mules comes
from an ability to dominate them with strength. But
having had the opportunity on several occasions to
watch him working with teams and multiple hitches, I
can attest that this teamster is all about finesse. When
he drives his heart and his mind are concentrated on
making the task something that the draft animals
naturally want to put their effort into. The no-pressure
driving he describes is the gold standard for any aspiring teamster to aim for.

The Commands
I have a Polish American friend who was raised in a
community where almost all the men were employed
in Pennsylvania coal mines. His Polish-speaking father,

Working with Your Horse

What Is No-Pressure Driving?

by Donn Hewes, Northland Sheep Dairy, Marathon, New York

No-pressure driving is a method I try to teach my
horses and mules, as well as all the apprentices and
other folks that come here to learn to drive. It is really
a continuation of things I have learned from reading
Steve Bowers and Doc Hammill as well as watching
and learning from the many teamsters I have been
around. [Steve Bowerss book on driving is listed in
the bibliography, and Doc Hammills teaching materials are listed in the resources section of appendix A.]
Before I describe what I am doing let me explain
why, for it is not to create a no-pressure horse or
a no-pressure teamster. While those would be fine
things to achieve, the real purpose is to help a horse
or mule become calm, relaxed, and alert while at
work. I believe this is a natural state for horses, but
it is easy for people to disrupt it and not even know
we are doing so. But the calm, relaxed, and alert state
is a must for successful farmwork, and it contributes
directly to our safety, as it provides an early warning system when things are no longer going the way
we want. This provides the environment for a calm,
relaxed, and alert teamster as well.
The calm, relaxed, and alert horse or mule also
makes our work easier and more enjoyable. Your
forearms wont be so tired after driving a team of
four all afternoon. It also makes the craft of a teamster more accessible to folks who cant just rely on
brawn to control every situation (again, something
I dont recommend).
The driving method goes like this: There is no
pressure put on the lines that isnt delivered as a
message and expecting a response from the horse.
In other words, the teamster does not hold 5 or 10
pounds of steady pressure just to keep the animals
walking straight ahead (which is the conventional
norm for driving horses). Instead, the animals get
a steady stream of little verbal messages, almost like
a soft banter: look here, watch your step, easy,
will be turning, turning, et cetera. The horses

Three-abreast on the spreader photo courtesy of Donn Hewes

Leading the herd in from pasture photo courtesy of Donn Hewes

Suffolk mare at Northland Sheep Dairy photo courtesy of Donn Hewes

51

52

The New Horse-Powered Farm

recognize your presence and the meaning of the verbal signals, and acknowledge each in kind with a
little step in the right direction. When the response
doesnt match the request, the teamster can use a
little more energy in the lines to make the point.
Sometimes no pressure seems like a misnomer,
as you really use as much pressure as is needed to
make your point. I have found no-pressure driving
to be a difficult skill to teach. On the one hand,
when the point of contact with your animal has
along with all his Polish-speaking uncles and cousins,
worked in those mines; even the teamsters who drove
the mule teams to haul the coal up to the surface
spoke Polish. So when the miners went on strike and
the bosses brought in scab workers from elsewhere to
replace them, the mules refused to work; they only
understood Polish and would not respond to English
commands. We might not always think so, but our
horses are listening to every word we say. They are also
constantly reading all the subtle nonverbal cues we give
that we ourselves may not even be aware of: the scent
of our bodies and the smell of our breath, the set of our
shoulders, the hardness or softness of our eyes.
When we speak of the verbal instructions that we
issue to our horses in the course of work it is common
to refer to them as commands. Yet in our heart of hearts
we know that what we are really doing is asking them to
perform various tasks for us. And even if we are working
with horses that we have raised from foals and trained
every step of the way, we still must admit to a certain
mystery and wonder that these gentle giants concede
to obey us at all. In this light our commands might be
properly understood as requests.
It is true that teamsters must to a certain degree
impose their will upon the team but the aim is not total
control for its own sake, but rather to find that space
where everyone is working comfortably. A teamster
who constantly makes things uncomfortable for the
horses may get work out of them with an overbearing
hand, but such a teamster will never get joy out of them
or out of the experience. We need not be harsh in order

been reduced, any slack in the system leads to no

steering, and on the other hand, extra pressure just
gives the animal something to push against. The
no-pressure driving happens in the middle ground
between these extremes.
I believe that when we have mastered all the other
skills of being a teamster our hands will still be just
beginning to discover how they can communicate
with an animala life pursuit that will give us great
rewards over time.
to assert our authorityand in most cases a gentler
approach will achieve much better results. When I was a
rank beginner working with horses, for example, I used a
commanding voice. When the horses werent listening,
my voice would get louder and would reflect my anxious irritation. Gradually it dawned on me that almost
without exception, all the skilled teamsters I had the
privilege to observe spoke to their horses in soft soothing
tones, and especially so when working with a nervous
or confused animal. We know that horses hearing is far
more sensitive than our ownthey can hear sounds of
both higher and lower pitch. Shouting at them is almost
always futile. There will be certain situations and certain
horses that may on occasion require a big voice and a
large projected presence to keep things under control,
but this should be the exception rather than the rule.
A trained draft horse understands with perfect comprehension the verbal commands of her teamster. Such
a horse can be expected to respond to the voice first;
the driving lines become a secondary cue. Once a horse
knows a practiced routine, such as the path back up the
skid trail, the words used simply become part of the
ritual. It is nonetheless an important ritual, as even a
very smart horse might get you into trouble by overanticipating your requests. What we are aiming to achieve
is a subtle level of communication that combines the
cues from our hands and our voice.
As far as the words themselves, there is a long tradition among horsemen whose etymology extends back
into the mists of medieval Europe. And even today,
there exist many regional twists and variations. For the

Working with Your Horse

words to have their maximum effect, it is important to

keep commands simple and consistent. The way the
words are spoken is also important. For instance, Get
up is usually spoken with a rising inflection, while
Whoa will be spoken with a lower descending tone.
The five most basic commands for working horses
are commonly spoken as follows:

1. Get up (or Step up), accompanied by a kissing

sound or smack of the lips, to start the horses out.
2. Whoa, to stop the horses.
3. Gee means turn to the right.
4. Haw means turn to the left.
5. Back means back up.

In addition to these five basic commands there are

several nuanced phrases that can be introduced to the
willing workhorse. If we say one step, we are asking
the horses to do just that. There are countless instances
in real work situations where having a horse or team
trained to take just one stride forward is useful.
Many teamsters prefer to say the horses name before
pronouncing a start-up command. The idea is to first
get the horses attention so that she wont be taken by
surprise and start up with a jolt or out of unison with
her teammate. When the two horses in a team learn to
start out together the wear and tear on their shoulders
and joints is greatly reduced.
The turn signals gee and haw can be nuanced by saying, come gee or come haw (or alternatively over
gee or over haw) to indicate that a shift to the left or
right is whats needed, rather than an outright turn. If,
however, we want to make a complete turn and head
back in the direction from which we have come, we
say, Gee come around or Haw come around. And
getting back to the one-step command, we may find
ourselves in a situation where we wish the horse to take
one step gee to get that log around a stump or to start
the cultivator down the correct row.
The back or backing up request is probably most
often used in the forest, but there are many occasions in
the field where it will also come into play, such as when
hitching up to an implement, or backing a manure
spreader into a stable.

53

To slow or calm down the horses we say, Easy (and

drag it out, as in Eeeasy) and if they dont respond,
reinforce with gentle line pressure. While we may
admire the talents of the five-gaited El Paso Fino we
want our workhorses to have but one gait: walking. It
may be a slow walk on the plow or a brisk walk on the
hay rake, but it is all walking.
When it comes to the command to stop, whoa
should only and ever mean just that. There should be
no nuance to your whoa. Absolute obedience to this
command is a must for safe driving; it may even save
the life of you and your horses in a situation of harness
or equipment failure.

Harnessing and Hitching

I like to keep routines as consistent as possible with the
horses because I feel that they stay more relaxed when
they know what to expect from me, so I always brush
them down and pick out their feet before harnessing
up. Consistency is one of the principal keys to success in
getting horses to respond as you wish. I view time spent
grooming, for example, as an important transition for
the horses to begin to put their heads into work mode.
Grooming the horses is also a pleasant social interaction.
In addition, it affords the opportunity to be sure the
horses are healthy and sound. It is the time when any
incipient issues of sores or cuts and scrapes will most
likely be detected. I once had a horse out on pasture that
got a nasty scrape from old barbed wire above the bulb of
the heel on his hind foot. If I hadnt taken the time to pick
up his feet, that cut would assuredly have grown infected.
A basic kit for grooming your horses will include:
hoof pick, curry comb, soft brush, sweat scraper, mane
and tail brush. The essentials of grooming include
picking out the hooves, vigorous use of curry comb to
loosen dirt from the coat (but only on the main body of
the horsenot over bony surfaces), followed by use of
the soft brush to smooth down hair again by following
the natural growth patterns. The mane and tail brush
is optional; we usually only use this when the horses
have gotten into some kind of stickers or burrs (the
forelock and tail will actually keep a fuller look if you
dont brush them out excessively).