Please Help! Advice needed

Hi guys,

Its lovely to be on here!

Im just wondering if you can give me some advice please?

I part loan a beautiful 16 year old mare 3 times a week.

I chose to part loan her due to family circumstances (kids lol) I am now pregnant again but I still go down 3 times a week and I will continue to do so because I love it lol.

We have bonded exceptionally well and I do believe she enjoys being around me........

Being pregnant means im not riding so to keep our bond strong I would like to do some groundwork with her...
The owner sometimes lunges her but mostly rides her.

If I did some groundwork with her would this confuse her previous training?as I will be doing different techniques to lunging, and will the training work even though im only down three times a week?

Any advice or even groundwork ideas would be greatly appreciated
Thanks xxxx

The only time I have ever seen problems is when one person has trained the horse to turn and face the lunger and/or come in when not circling, as opposed to the other person, who wants the horse to stay out on the circle until the lunger goes out and physically changes the horse's direction.

If you work at free lunging and your signals are consistent, the horse should be able to read you. For example, if you say, with your body, "move to the left", any horse should know that. IF the don't , then your teaching them that cannot help but benefit them.

You might look into doing something really fun, like training tricks using clicker training. It's going to be awhile til you can ride again, even after baby is born.

Good luck with horse and new baby (when the time comes)

Thankyou for your advice,

I don't think im going to do any lunging at all as I know her owner does this with her.
I would like to do something new and fresh and I have been looking into teaching her tricks ;0) so this could be a good way.

Thanks xx

I agree with tinyliny , teaching her tricks in awesome way to keep ur bond =)

In my opinion, that would be a great way to continue to bond with her while you cannot ride.

Groundwork is priceless. Many of us don't do it nearly enough. You can work on things like moving her shoulders and haunches, cuing her to stop, back up or change pace merely with your body language... you could teach her to ground tie, or to let you pick up all of her feet from wherever you are standing. You can do desensitization, showing her new or "scary" things and exploring them together. The possibilities are endless. Have fun with it!

It is very unlikely that anything you do with her on the ground will hinder her under saddle training. In fact, it's very likely to benefit her overall manners. Three times a week of groundwork is more than enough to get it to stick and really establish a strong bond of leadership and partnership.

Well said Eolith. Ground work is so important and too often overlooked. It will only do good for her. It makes your working relationship with your horse stronger, will improve manners and creates a very confident willing to please horse.

You could work on showmanship - stopping, setting up, pivots. Desensitizing - really endless options, I have a box of "toys" for bombproofing full of plastic sacks, balloons, pool noodles, party noise makers, a train whistle, tarps, I've even been caught leading my horse around while waving cheerleading pom poms (I am so grateful my hubby didn't have a camera!) You could play "In hand trail class" and set up ground poles, a bridge, an L to back thru, etc.
Good luck with horse and baby :)

You say that you have bonded really well with this mare. Why not try some join-up?

Remember, what ever you do, to keep yourself safe ;)