Ride & Drive the Same Horse

Question
Hi,
I have a 3 1/2 year old Quarter Horse mare.  She was professionally trained
to ride last summer.  The trainer ground drove her before he rode her.  He
did an excellent job.  I am not as good of a rider as he is but I rode her
the rest of the summer strictly for pleasure.  Now that it is winter I would
like to have her pull a sleigh instead of riding when it's cold.  I have
heard that a riding horse will be ruined by pulling because they get
confused and/or pluggish etc.  Is this true?  Please advise.
Thank you,
Sylvia  

Answer
Sylvia,

I and many of my friends have horses that we both ride and drive.  Lord, my endurance horse is a retired Standardbred who raced for 3 yrs. in harness before I got her and introduced her to saddle.  She's got over 1,000 mi. logged in competitions, both competitive trail and endurance and she's not pluggish by any means!  I've competed her in competitive trail driving, riding and we finished 9th to world class horses in a 50 mi. endurance race last month.

I prefer to train youngsters to drive before I start riding them in all honesty.  I can start with them earlier without worrying about putting weight on them.  I put a mouth on them, set their gaits and teach them a whole lot about responsiveness without a saddle.  I've never known any horse that is used both to ride and drive to have any sort of problems with being confused.  It's a nice change of pace for them to do something in harness vs. under saddle.

Big question is, how much do you know about driving?  Driving a sleigh is different than driving a cart or wagon and not something to do be done if you are just learning to drive.  If you want the horse trained and get taught yourself then by all means go ahead.  You'll enjoy your horse a lot more because you can share her with people who don't ride.  Go for it!