I'm always looking for ways to excite and challenge my Huskies. Most dogs especially huskies have a high prey drive so around other animals they get overly excited! I therefore always had a dream to get them running with horses. I wasn’t sure how they would exactly take to it but I knew there were no risks and I knew they would be so happy to be so close to horses. Now, understand I'm not that knowledgeable about horses so I had more concern how the horses would react. With the team I have assembled to do all my WooFDriver lifestyle I knew somebody would have some insights.
One of my main guys Big Jim let me know he actually knows the owner of one of the last remaining official horse training tracks here in Maryland. Keep in mind Maryland is an Equine state and home to the Preakness (World Famous Horse Race Yearly). So Big Jim arranged for me to actually meet the owner of this horse track and that owner loved what I do with my Huskies and he offered me the opportunity to rent usage of the horse track anytime. I couldn’t resist, so i proceeded to rent usage of the track and took my dogs there once a week or so to mush on my bikes. This track was again official regulation size of 5/8 of a mile and had regulation sand depth going from deeper towards the inside and more shallow on the outside.
At this horse track the owner also boarded horses so while i wasn’t on the track the same time as the horses there they were usually outside on the perimeter of the track and got so excited to see us that they would essentially race/follow us as we mushed the track. And then one day it happened!!!
The horse track owner let me know one of the people that boards some horses there saw me on the track and thought what I was doing was so amazing as he NEVER saw anyone doing anything like it and he wanted to get some pictures with his GIANT Belgian Horses (similar to Budweiser Clydesdales). The track owner went one step further after I told him I would LOVE to do it. He said lets kind of make an event out of this and he would operate his Cherry Picker Lift to get some aerial shots if I will get some professional photographers and videographers to document it, and the Dogs Racing Horses at the Track was born!
So the gentleman with the Belgians had a professional jockey drive the horses with a cart/carriage in tow as I would MUSH the dogs next to the horses. Now please understand this was not a real race as these INCREDIBLE Majestic Belgian Beauties are not for racing and could hurt themselves running like that, they work by pulling carts/carriages at slow speeds so this wasn’t really going to be a race but just like a meet and greet and trot/walk the track with the dogs but of course the Huskies weren’t having any of that and were basically running circles around the horses.
Keep in mind I am an animal lover all day every day so I needed to be sure this would be ok for the horses. I knew I could control my dogs as they would not have any opportunity to chase or harass the horses.
After meeting with the jockey and other horse experts I learned it would be perfectly fine and fun for the horses as some horses are actually raised with dogs and they thrive together. In addition the jockey had complete control of the horses and would use blinders on the ones that may need them.
The jockey wasn’t quite prepared for the husky endurance and was kind of amazed that they would run the track all day with the horses. The horses apparently aren’t built for that so the jockey actually had 2 or 3 two horse teams she would rotate with so we could run/trot/walk most of the day. By the way you'll be able to tell my dogs absolutely behaved so well from my training and enjoyed every moment of this once in a lifetime opportunity. On this page below you can see a few videos of some of the mushing/running we did at the track!