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Restart training from ground zero

4K views 10 replies 8 participants last post by  Cordillera Cowboy 
#1 ·
Ok so my TWH mare has always been a trail horse. She's an awesome trail horse. I've always just hopped on and headed for the trails. We've never done any type of arena work or even lunging. I know that stuff is like very basic but I've never really done it with her.
Last week a friend of mine invited midnight and I to go riding on the trails around his new house. And he just got s new horse and was just starting some ground work. That's when I realized that midnight has never done this.
I attempted to lunge her and she had no idea of what I was asking her to do. I could tell that she was getting frustrated. We tried going around the arena a couple times and she did fairly well but then I tried to trot in a small circle and she just didn't understand, she kept trying to go the other way, she was trotting sideways, I was so embarrassed lol.
Now midnight is truly an awesome horse. Anything new I ever wanted to try, I've always done it with midnight. She is really gentle and respectful.
So my question is, would it be beneficial to go back and teach her these things, or do you think at this point it really doesn't matter? I would really like to get her to do it, but would it be helping anything?
 
#6 ·
Agree
Many of our horses never learned to lunge, as I never used to lunge horses as part of starting them, esp when I was starting morre working bred horses, and those we just trail rode.
Unless you have a reason that you now want her to learn to lunge, doing so, just because your friend does, is not a reason, as she does her job fine.
 
#11 ·
but, even riding in the arena, she could not do circles? can she turn , I mean, if you come to a place in the trainl where she needs to turn, is this hard for her?

is there any part of her trail riding that needs improvment?
Tiny, I didn't catch this until you mentioned it. The OP said she was trying to trot in small circles. She also said it was a Tennessee walker. First, I'm questioning why the OP is encouraging her walker to trot. Most of the walkers I work with are the big lanky type. If I asked them to make a small circle at anything over a walk, they would tangle their feet up and go down in a heap. Some of them can thread a needle at a walk. But not at speed. There are also some compactly built ones that could do it. But for most of these walking horses used exclusively for trails, there is little reason.

Corporal may disagree with me. She has used walkers as performance horses. But, I suspect she trained them up herself for that purpose. It would be interesting to hear what she has to say.

"is there any part of her trail riding that needs improvement?"

This is a valid question. The only thing I really take an already working trail horse into the arena for, is to make sure I can put on and take off a raincoat, work on standing for mounting or ground tying.
 
#10 ·
I should also mention trotting in SMALL circles is extremely hard for ANY horse due to their size. That's why barrel racing requires training to get around those barrels safely and correctly.

Trotting sideways... do you mean she was moving sideways like sidepassing? Sounds like she was yielding to pressure instead of bending to it.
 
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