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Why do carriage horses have their eyes covered2007-11-24 21:23:18

In showing driving horses, the "turnout" or visual impression of the horse and vehicle are judged, and in general because of the tradition of driving horses with blind bridles, a horse or team that is shown in open bridle is going to look strange compared to the other competitors. For this reason most competitors are going to be loath to show in open bridles.

With regards to the horses having complete trust in the driver, for any horse to compete successfully in any event, there has to be a relationship of trust. This involves hours and hours and hours and hours of training and work outside the showring or competition course, with horse and rider/driver learning about each other and learning how to communicate and "read" the various aids and cues. People who compete in driving events will tell you that while a well-trained horse or team and an expert driver can go in "cold," without knowing each other, and manage to complete the course, it really takes getting to know the horse or horses in the team and the team learning about the driver to make a winning competition.

I firmly believe, based on my experience and talking to others who have driven horses, that there is no valid functional reason that horses have to be driven in a blind bridle. You can drive a horse or a team in an open bridle without any problems if you just work with them a little. But because of the style/turnout issues, and also because of the difficulty of finding an open bridle harness set without special ordering it, most people who drive default to a blind bridle.

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They are called blinkers.So that the horse can only see straight ahead of them and not be distracted by seeing whats going on around them.The horse is realieing on the driver to help steer them.So its important for a horse not to have a bad experience while driving.Race horses also use them for the same reason.Some trainers use them for training purposes.

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The equipment is called Blinders,they are used to cover just the horse's peripheral vison, this helps keep the horse calm and concentrate on what is in front of them and what the driver is telling them to do. You see horses have a range of vison of about 350 degrees, when the average cat or dog only has a range of 150 degrees and a nervous horse has a hard time paying attention when they can see all that is going on around them, even when a well trained horse is presented with something new they can still be unpredictable so the Blinders can be a precaution as well...