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Done some groundwork... What's next?

1K views 14 replies 10 participants last post by  Heleen Strydom 
#1 ·
I previously posted a thread about my stubborn mare, and got the advice to do a bit of groundwork again. So I did. I did Clinton Anderson's 8 exercises on respect ect. My mare (Winter) did not do so well at first, but she got the hang of it all and I feel she respects me on the ground now.

My question is... What's next? Do I mount her again? For how long should I do the groundwork? She bucked me off the last time I tried riding her, I got up immediately again but did not get very far.
 
#2 ·
Groundwork her until you feel that her attention is on you - before or after you saddle, it doesn't matter. Then groundwork her a little more.
When you are both ready, mount up and do some small arena exercises so her mind is constantly working and doesnt have time to think on how to make you stop riding. Make her go over or by obstacles, do small circles in every corner with backing in between, etc.
 
#3 ·
CA always advocates doing a mix of ground work that gets her moving and desensitization exercises. If you only do one type, the horse will be unbalanced in her reactions to you. Not enough desensitization and she'll be flighty/spooky. Not enough moving of the feet and she'll be dead/cold.
 
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#4 ·
Yes, what amberly said.

I will work a horse on the ground until I have their full attention and respect exactly when I ask for it. If I don't the same undersaddle, get off and do more groundwork :)

That said, if you feel she is totally attentive and respecting you, go ahead and try a few minutes of riding, or whatever your comfortable with, and go from there.

BTW, have you already ruled out saddle fit or back issues? Sorry if you've already said that..
 
#5 ·
Don't get on until you feel that she is calm, respecful and responsive. I always do groundwork first before saddling, then after saddling. Make sure she is moving well at all gaits under saddle (see how she is feeling and if anything is pinching/bothering her. There are many different reasons why horses buck, the key is figuring out what sets them off)

Groundwork is not something that you can do once and then expect the horse to be good from there on out. You will always have to be reminding her of who is boss as well as earning her trust as a leader. Day to day, each and every time you go out to see her. Horses are always challenging one another for a higher spot in the herd, so you need to expect to be treated as a herd member.

Start small. Your riding sessions do not have to be an hour long to teach the horse anything or regain confidence with her. 15-20 minutes is often sufficient enough, unless you are conditioning for sport, but in that case you would be working not only the mind but the body as well, which can take longer to tune up.
If all feels good and she is responding well, go longer. Go out, do what you feel she can handle and do not be afraid to get off at any point. Many riders feel that they are giving up the fight & letting the horse win if they dismount, but sometimes it is not only safer for you, but beneficial to the horse because you can take charge alot easier from the ground and get the horse's attention, respect and confidence back. If a horse is panicking, she is going to panick with or without you on her back.
When you get her over it, hop back on and continue on normally.
 
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#6 ·
I do a ton of ground work with my guy and he's great on the ground. I also did some Clinton Anderson stuff to see if I could get my horse to respond and he did and he thought it was so much fun actually. I can get him to do anything on the ground. In the saddle, I see MUCH MORE respect for sure. But he still sees if I'm paying attention. And today he spooked at two hikers coming towards him. We were out in the open - he could see them plain as day. NOTHING out of the ordinary. People never bother him even if they are hiding behind trees :) But these people, he wanted NOTHING to do with them. He stopped and I could feel his whole body tense up. He looked behind and I knew what he was thinking... he was going to flee in the other direction. I kept him from doing that but all the ground work went right out the window pretty much. You just never know what is going to happen. I just started to move his feet. Half circles, backing up, and it did work a tiny bit but not great. Don't know what else I could have done but got off and ground worked him.
 
#7 ·
Don't allow the horse to travel in a straight like. As you mount, have it's nose tipped toward you. Hold it there for a full minute, no walking off. Keep the horse bent as you walk, to one side or the other. Use the leg on the same side to push the hips over. Be sure to let your leg off as soon as the hips move over, even a little.
 
#8 ·
I would do ground work, tack her up, do some more ground work and make sure she is listening and paying attention to you. Then when you do mount bend her head in so she won't walk off, if she does walk off....jump down and make her move! Then try again.......when you feel comfortable that you have the horses attention, then I would get on but do it in a round pen where you can have a bit of control of the situation.....
 
#9 ·
The vet came to check her over, and couldn't find anything wrong with her. No pain of any sort, her teeth is good as well as her feet. I thought the saddle is no longer a good fit - she did gain some weight during her "vacation" while I was pregnant, but she bucked when I tried bareback as well.

I've decided to do some more groundwork for a week or so. Then I'll tack her up and do some more. Then only would I mount her again. Please hold thumbs! I'll keep you all posted on how we are progressing.

Thank you for your advice!!!
 
#10 ·
For Heleen, here is my very long response. I hope it makes sense. it's much easier to do than to explain. Sorry for such a long block of text.

I am sure that you are doing that absolute best that you can, all by yourself. And it must feel a bit like walking around in a room full of furniture with the lights turned off, lots of stumbling and bumping. Most of us have the luxury of access to a trainer, or another rider with more experience, or even a long history of riding experience ourselves. (I do NOT have that. I started really riding at 41. I am 55 now) We don’t have to struggle and thrash around all on our own.
This is where it becomes obvious how helpful those online videos from various trainers can be. You have the ability to watch them work with horses, and mimic their actions, their body language and know what to look for in your own horse. If you were working with a good trainer in person, you’d get that sort of guidance slowly, step by step with the trainer pointing places where you did not get what you needed to get, and so you’d go back and try again. Without that, you are likely to miss some of the important concepts and focus overly on the outside appearance of groundwork, and thus kind of just go through the motions. However, if that is all that you can do for now, it’s better than nothing. You do the best you can in your given situation.

The thing that I always keep in mind with ground work is that you know you’ve done enough when you see a change in your horse. You are always looking to get a change, not do a certain number of “games” or steps. This is what’s hard for us non-trainers to always see. We get so focused on the mechanics of ground work we lose sight of what we are doing the groundwork for.

Your horse is very likely “spoiled”. I don’t really like to use those words, since they create a very negative reaction and set up even a sense of guilt from the rider , for allowing this to happen and a feeling that the horse is “ruined”. But, maybe instead of feeling guilty, we can approach the “spoiled” horse with a bit of sense of apology. Kind of , “I’m sorry dear that I didn’t make this clear earlier, but we have to change this up, for your own good.” The spoiled horse isn’t ruined. It’s just got a wrong idea about the world, and the owner has been going along with that idea, and since they’ve both been holding the same idea, it’s been a very pleasant and peaceful place to be. Thus the reason many horse owners say that their horse is “sweet” on the ground, and has a soft eye, and is very loving to them, on the ground, but different in the saddle when asked to ‘work’.

The purpose of ground work for such a horse is to change up the horse’s view, so that she no longer thinks that she can move when she wants to and resist when she wants to. A confident /experienced rider could change that up really quick in the saddle, but those of us who know we cannot win a bucking bout will try to do it on the ground. Even the very best riders usually prefer to do groundwork rather than have the horse buck through it’s tantrum . in any case, keep in mind that you are looking for a CHANGE, not to do a certain number of games, or go through some steps.
It will be the quality of the horse’s reaction to the ground work that matters more than the quantity of groundwork that you actually do. You can go all day going through a number of steps, but if she never really changes her reaction to you, then you wasting your time, and dulling her out , too.
So, in specifics, that means if you ask the horse to move off, and she kicks out at the whip, or pins her ears, don’t think that she has done enough because she moved out. she has not changed . she still does not think you should be moving her, and her reaction is full of resentment and resistance. If you got her to move off with the above expressions of body language, then said, “ok, I got her to move off, now what?” you would be moving right past a huge sticky place and leaving that bad attitude IN her. Continuing to push around such a bad attitude only builds up her resentment and irritability, and can make a crabby horse mean. You have to stay in THAT step and get THAT step to be really prompt, really responsive , with not back talk from your horse. Her attitude has to be addressed.

So, as to specifics. This is just a guess, since I am worlds away and cannot see your horse or how you handle her and how she reacts. But, I doubt that desensitizing is what she needs. It sounds more like she needs some “driving”, more sensitizing to the driving aids. You want to be working more on having her experience you making her move, when and how you want her to move, than having her stand around and accept the whip (your ultimate driving aid).

If you had a round pen, that would be ideal. Even a smallish paddock (large enough for her to pick up a good fast canter, but small enough she cannot run so far away that you cannot apply driving pressure on her . I’d do a good session just on making her move! Both directions, and briskly. If she kicked out at me, Id ask for a bit more. I don’t use a “handy” stick because if the horse is not willing to move out promptly, I can’t really apply good , sharp pressure. A lunge or dressage whip is what I prefer, and I will move it briskly through the air to create a whirring sound. I don’t actually hit the horse with it, since to do so would bring me in close enough that she could kick me. I want to move her along without her being able to hurt me. ”. This is only for a horse that really is resistant to moving , who sucks back against the pressure with resistance. They walk or trot off, but you can see in their faces that they are giving you as little as they can get away with. Your job is to not accept that but ask for them to “turn loose” to you. That means they allow you to send them forward, and later to draw them toward you, just as you direct.
A horse that is very light and even fearful, would be too afraid of the whip, and any “whirring”. That’s the horse that might need some desensitizing, and might work better with a “handy stick” or just plain body language. But, I get the feeling that your horse may need a sharper driving tool. Do, however, remember that you are always, ultimately, trying to get her to respect the LEAST amount of driving aid, so you always ask first with a very small amount of pressure, but go up to whatever is required to get a good response, and don’t spend a lot of time in between the little “ask” and the big “demand”. So, yeah, you need to have one or two session where your only objective is to get her to really give herself to your direction to “Go Forward!”. If she shows a lot of attitude, you get clear and firm with her. You are going to change up her world, and first comes this breaking out, and going forward, now!
When you get her to let loose and go forward, and start working a bit on getting her to trot, then trot faster, then trot slower, then come to a walk, then trot on, then canter, and canter faster, then allow her to drift to a walk then ask her to move back up to a canter. Start experimenting with changing her gait/speed. A word of warning: do not make her crazy by making her run around and around for hours. If you get some good , honest responses, you can quit. But, the first time, be sure that you really feel a change in her reaction. It feels like the horse goes from moving around through molasses (treacle?) to moving around freely and lightly. That’s the place to quit.

So, that’s the first objective; get her moving forward freely.
The next thing to work on is proper leading manners. This is something you do ALL the time. People lead differently, but all leading should require the horse to be watching you and ready to “follow” you , whether you are walking, stopping, turning.
I like to use a rope halter, with a 12 foot rope lead. I ask the horse to never allow his head to go beyond my hand, and I hold my hand out to my side. It’s not that important if it’s a bit in front or a bit in back, unless your horse is very pushy, in which case I would keep ,my leading hand a bit behind me. Think of that as a brick wall. Your horse , if he passes it, will hit his nose into a brick wall. Obviously, you have to create that brick wall, and once the horse knows it’s there, you need only make small reminders (a little jiggle of the rope when he is just about to cross the line), and if the he/she still moves beyond the border of your hand, then you give the lead a good snap downward, or, you throw the leadline up against the horse’s neck, whatever gets his attention and then you get him to back up.
That’s another thing that you need to work on; backing up. This is a very good thing to get good. It helps get a dominant horse to focus on you and give you some control of his feet. Again, the quality of the back up is more important than just doing a number of them. It’s really more than I can describe right now, but the one thing that you want to remember in this, and really in all groundwork, is the you want the first signal to be your body language, then you use your tools to reinforce that. So, for a back up, the lean of your body will signal to the horse to get ready to back up, and you reinforce that with the leadline, and then with a whip or the tail end of the rope, to get the horse to put some energy (life) into his legs and move back. Back up can be done both facing the horse, or facing forward, with the horse.
This is something that I might do a lot of watching videos of , of various trainers showing the back up. But, with a spoiled, pushy horse, you really want to be sure that the horse is backing up with some willingness, and not a whole lot of resentment. Once you get that willingness, give her a break from that bit of training. You got that CHANGE, so quit. The next time , the next day or so, that you ask her to back up, you will look for her to be as good as you got at the end of your training on the day before. She might regress, but she’ll likely be better than when you first started. Don’t allow the “old” kind of response, expect the “new “ level of obedience, every time you work with her, although understand that she might try to go back to her old way and you’ll need to “sharpen” her frequently. It’s about YOU remembering to expect more from her, every time you interact with her.
Anyway, this is what I would work on:
‘get an honest forward in a small pen. That should include cantering, as long as the horse is in good health, and the footing is decent.
Learn to back up your horse from in front of her.
Work on having her lead in a subordinate position, and back up with you next to her (facing forward).
For awhile, don’t hand feed her. If you want to give her a treat, like after she let you catch her in the pasture, put it on the ground and let her eat it there. in the future, if you ever hand feed her, make her stand a bit away from you and then you bring the treat to her mouth, do not allow her to nuzzle the treat out of your hand or pocket.
As for the new horse affecting her. Of course she is going to be focused on this new herd mate. Even if she bosses the new guy around, it’s still very engaging for her. It’s really her being a horse, which is all that she is meant to be. As a member of a herd, she must always have a horse or human that is on either side of her. That other member is either going to be one that she has to pay attention to and follow, or one that she must move out of her way when there is something that she wants first, such as food or water. Most horses are both pushers and pushed, and they are very accepting and happy with that. It’s like there are things on each side of them, above and below , supporting them and protecting them , and they are so happy to have that. Most horses are a bit anxious to be leader. Oh, sure, they may want to be leader when it comes to food time. But, when going out, the leader has a scary, more dangerous role, so they feel much happier to allow another horse to take the lead. Some horses do not like that, and will resist, and they require a very skilled horseman for them to give over the role of leader. But, most horses , once they realize that the human can make them move, will give over the leadership and will be much happier to do so. The problem lies in where the human herself is not convinced she can become a leader to that horse. Horses are very good at determining how convinced the human is. They push on the human, here and there, in small ways, that tell them whether or not this human is convinced of her leadership or not. If they have found out that on the ground you accept this pushing, then they will know that you will also accept in when you are in the saddle. Thus the groundwork is about convincing your horse that you will not accept the push back (the pinned ears, kicking out, sluggish responses, bad attitude, etc.). once you change that, the horse under saddle will be changed.
However, barn sourness, and buddy sourness can still be an issue, and require further work.
I suggest that you do some searches both on the Horse Forum and online (You tube) for ways to deal with barn or buddy sourness.
Best of luck. Just remember that you are going to shake up the mare’s world, and realize that in the long run, she will be much happier with this kind of relationship than she is with the one where she calls the shots.

Caroline

Sorry for the mongo block of text.
 
#11 ·
Thank you Caroline, for taking the time and putting in the effort to reply to me! The very first thing I'm doing now, is to be really attentive to her reactions to my requests. I'll then take it from there. I will keep you posted.
P.S I think my husband had enough of my nagging - this morning he started building my round pen!
 
#13 ·
There’s no hard and fast answer, it will vary with every horse, and probably the person handling it. I work with a general principal that I like to do heaps of groundwork on every horse I train. I get to a point where I figure the horse is probably ready to be ridden, then give it a little more. This needs some qualification: I do as much groundwork as I can, and then some, only within the bounds of the horse not getting sour on it.

If the horse is getting sour on it, then there’s probably a couple of options, find a way for a bit more groundwork that is novel enough to not sour the horse, give the horse a rest (usually the best option, I have found over the years patience goes a LONG way), or finally, start a little riding.

The thing with the way I do groundwork, I’m guessing the way most people do it, but everything I will do with the reins on its back (in their grossest form, right at the beginning, and through to a reasonable level of refinement) follows the same format as what I do on the ground with the lead rope when I lunge the horse. The go, the left and right, the backup and crucially the stop, are all set up through the lunging techniques I use. So the better the horse goes on the ground, 9 times out of 10 at least the better it will go when I get on its back. Now having said that, there is, in my opinion, no way to train a horse on the ground for absolutely everything you will do on its back, sooner or later you have to ride it, but you can set the horse up well and make the transition as smooth as possible. I have read where people have said that what you do on the ground has no bearing on what you do on its back because the horse knows the difference between a person on the ground and on its back; that I think is utter rubbish, of course they know the difference, that idea misses the point entirely.

And, while building all of that, the techniques all build a great deal of respect, the way you treat the horse doing it mimics the way horses treat each other, AND, it takes care of all the trailer/truck loading, walking in and out of sheds/stables, and about a million other things you might think to do with a horse. So, good solid ground training is a must as far as I’m concerned.

(Quick example from probably the most refined level of ground training I have ever managed to get to. I managed to get a few of my own horses to the point where I could jump on one and put a halter and a 40 odd foot lead rope on another, I would ride out to find the milker cows and sit on one horse and bring the cows and calves in with the horse on the lead rope. From around 40 feet away and me sitting on another horses back the haltered horse still knew I wasn’t riding it, but I had it working cattle like I was (even if they were just a couple of old milker cows and their calves), so the groundwork / on the back-work not being related? Rubbish)

So, getting back towards what you were asking, “done some groundwork, what next?” well that will depend. Like I said above, generally the more the better, so long as you aren’t making the horse board senseless, and you progress with what you have the horse for in the first place.

The best way I have found to systematise it, keeping in mind that this is a general principal and must be adapted more or less for individual horses, is as follows:

To begin with, all groundwork, only take the horse as far in a session as it can easily handle and succeeded at. With each session, reiterate what went on in the last session, a little revision and push ahead with whatever is new fairly gently.

When I think the horse is ready to be ridden, I review with the horse what went before, even if briefly to ensure that there is a solid foundation, then start the riding.

When I start the riding, I’ll start the session with a review of groundwork, then do a little riding, probably more groundwork that riding. Depending on the horse I might work on an aspect of the groundwork as it links up with riding or something like that.

Slowly the riding will increase and the groundwork aspect of the session will decrease. Like lilruffian said, it’s not something you do once and forget about, also like she said, when saddling, I would give them a quick lunging, just to wake them up for the day’s work and let the saddle settle a bit, so even way into a horse’s working life you can still be giving them groundwork.

It’s an absolutely fundamental part of dealing with a horse in my opinion and one that will go on throughout a horse’s working life to greater or lesser degrees. When is the time for transitions? For me that came from experience, learning to read a horse better with it, and learning to better adapt my methods to individual horses (probably the hardest lesson for me, aside from learning patience and to give horses a break). Finally, as I have gotten better at it I need less of it, though I probably do more of it.

So what next? Probably more, a bit of riding, more groundwork, more riding and so on and so forth.
 
#14 ·
So one thing I get from these very appreciated replies - I can never do enough groundwork! I've been doing some for 3 weeks now, but still I am not yet completely satisfied. She yields beautifully , both forequarters as well as hindquarters, but it seems like she has never been lunged before! It looks like she gets bored with me and what we are doing.

And then there's the issue of her new friend. I took in a pony. Rescued it from the butcher and it's now my daughters, although she (me daughter) gets really really angry when I say Tequila is hers and Winter mine. Anyway, Winter seems to hate being apart from Tequila. The lunging ring I use is about 800m from the paddock and she's constantly calling for Tequila and looking that way.
 
#15 ·
FOR TINYLINY!

I am satisfied with the way Winter behaves on the leading rope. she stays behind my feet and stops and turns when I do. Of course I would lead her daily from now to make sure that's not an issue.

I've been watching her reactions very closely towards me and my requests today - she seems to get distracted very easily... bored even! I constantly have to focus her attention on me and what we are doing. Tequila's fault???

My husband said something that actually makes sense the longer I think about it... The spot where I saddle her up for a ride is right next to the paddock. It's really grassy and green - maybe the quality of grass on that spot is better than the quality of the grass in her paddock (or pasture? English is only my 3rd language!). She stands still while being tacked up because she's tied up. The moment I mount her, she lowers her head to graze. It's almost as if she gets irritated at me for ruining this grass for her! I know this behaviour is another sign of her not respecting me, but does she need a supplement of any kind?
 
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