Yes - a full collar allows the horse to use his bodyweight more effectively against a load, and makes it more comfortable when the line of draught is lower (i.e. coming from the floor to his shoulders, as when using chain harrows or logging) compared to when it is coming from a swingle tree off a carriage to the shoulders, which is higher). We like using American collars (they can be adjusted unlike traditional English collars that are made to fit) so they are very useful with a growing horse and mean you can use the same collar any time of year regardless of whether your horse has put on or lost muscle/weight. They are also made wider and can be used with a padded liner so make it very comfortable for the horse.

Thanks for your comment; always lovely to hear what people think of our training and videos. I believe the carriage in this video belonged to Daniel's owner, so I am unsure of the exact make, but I think it could be either an older-style Hartland carriage, or a Glinkowski (Polish) carriage. Both are good makes; this video was a few years ago so I'm afraid I can't recall exactly what make this carriage was! Hope that helps!

Hi Diana Bravestorm , we live near Stockbridge in Hampshire, England; I agree it is a very beautiful place to live and we are lucky to have such a lovely workplace :-)

thank you for replying i love your videos and how you don't rip their little heads of so to speak with metal and you prove to allot of people when i was watching your video with the poor little guy from Ireland who bolted, that though you just got him even with a soft rubber bit he can be controlled it's beautiful to see true people who care about horses.

Ideas and I have

With all due respect I think Barry knows this horse better than anyone, even his owner, seeing as he trained him to this standard. You don't get this level of trust and respect from a horse without understanding him. I think what he's trying to show here is that the horse WON'T move forwards and Barry's confident enough in his training to show that - not to mention I'm sure he wouldn't risk injury seeing as his livelihood depends on it. Not many trainers put their money where their mouth is so to speak so I for one am glad to see someone actually train their horse to a high standard and show it can be done, rather than cop-out and say ahh well I haven't done that with the horse because its risky... I hear a lot of people say stuff like I wouldn't drive a horse down a busy highway in case he spooked, I wouldn't drive past a plastic bag in case it frightened him and many of my driving friends wouldn't drive in a rubber bit like Barry in case their horses ran away (even though I quoted them Barry's saying that you can't stop a bolting horse in a severe metal bit so you've got nothing to lose as its all about the level of training in the first place). Nobody would ever do anything with horses based on what they could do if they took one little step at the wrong time. I've also seen plenty of experienced logging horses (without blinkers, so they can see what's going on), move forwards without being asked by the logger as they are anticipating what's going to happen - they know what they are going to have to do which in some cases is worse than an inexperienced horse! You see it a lot with the draft horse pulling contests - lots of footage on KZfaq - sometimes they are barely able to hook on to the sled as the horses are raring to go and they have to literally hold them back while the horses are plunging forwards and drop it over - now there is a potential for major injuries as the horses aren't listening, despite being very experienced in the job they are doing! Kudos to Barry and I look forwards to seeing many more informative videos like this in the future.

It was not clear to me from the video and from what Barry was saying that he knows the horse very well. I understood it that he didn't, that's where I was coming from with my comments. I agree with what you say about it being no good to avoid risky situations, as they will happen eventually.I train my horses that way - askig them to face situations they find challenging, and eventually there is less and less in their lives they are actually seriously challegend by, including busy roads. And I have seen the behaviour you describe, with horses being so eager to go that they nearly take off before being hitched - this is very dangerous for the handler. I suppose I would find it helpful if Barry sometimes gave more background/explanation on his videos. But I only just subscribed, so haven't seen many yet...