I am going to work on ground work with Hunter twice a week. Where do I start? She's sixteen and is broken. I just wanna work on ground work. Not anything specific, but I'm looking for some exercise with her. She picks up her hooves well. Free lunges. Posted via Mobile Device
Follow Clinton Anderson's method, real easy to do. Buy his big green book - Downunder Horsemanship. Step by step order of what you ought to do whether she knows it already or not.
Quite honestly I cannot see the point in dedicating time to do ground work with a horse that has been ridden.
Label me as lazy, I never use six feet when I can use four!
Unless you have a horse that is ill mannered then there really is little need.
Every day interaction should be more than enough.
Leading a horse in and out to the field, covers leading, opening and closing the gate, yielding either fore or hind quarters. You can also stop and ask for reverse.
For me the handling in the stable is the most important. I would muck the horses out as they ate their hard feed and they would move when I asked them to - most would actually move sides when they knew I wanted to get to the other side of them.
I Would make a horse stand at the back of the stable hilly I tacked him up and just. Cease the stable door was opened did not mean he was to walk out. He had to wait until I invited him to move towards the door.
I would watch for them to unlock a knee prior to taking that first step and with a horse that knew better, a verbal correction was enough. A horse that was learning was pushed back, with the verbal 'Eh' and a firm finger in the chest to make them go back.
Standing still of I was fiddling with anything prior to riding. They learned to pick up feet when asked and, as I said I was lazy and always in a rush, they learned to pick up all four feet from one side.
I rarely had to tie my horses, they all knew how to tie but the only times I did tie them was if they were tacked up and I had to leave them for a while, all the rest was done loose, in the stable.
I would stand them in the aisle to clip them, stopped all the hair getting in the bedding, the older horses would stand loose with a halter rope just thrown over their neck others I would tie. Ditto with bathing them.
Feeding they had to stand back until I put the feed in the manger.
All this might take a while to actually teach them when they were just starting to be broken, the time it took in minutes saved me hours over the course of the year.
Agree with Foxhunter. I'd never dedicate time for groundwork with something that was already broke to ride and didn't have any glaring holes in its training that made it a pain to handle. If your horse already leads, stands when tied or not tied, picks up its feet, yields fore and hindquarters and moves sideways as needed, 'training' that stuff is boring. You can work on it during everyday handling, and it will have a point to it.
There was this 'meme' making the internet rounds a couple weeks ago.
Teacher: What day is it?
Student: The 17th.
Teacher: What day is it?
Student: Tuesday.
Teacher: What day is it?
Student: WTF?
If your horse can already answer your questions, why keep asking him?
After initial early training and initially teaching good manners, I find no advantage to doing ground work for the sake of ground work. A person interaction with a horse on a daily basis IS ground work. You 'fix' any problem if it appears and just go on with daily interactions.
I see many horses that have gotten very ill-tempered from a handler excessively 'picking' at them for little tiny meaningless things. This can be so pronounced with horses that have had people do endless and mindless Parelli groundwork 'games', that I recommend people look elsewhere for a riding prospect. Some of these horses just plain stay mad and hate human interaction. The best reward you can give a horse is to leave it alone when you are not doing something meaningful.
Only Reason I can see for ground work on a broke horse, is if he lacks respect, or you are keeping her tuned for showmanship.
There might be one other application, in the case of your horse, done correctly, and that would be to bit her up gradually, while lunging, overtime, while making sure to drive her up from behind, thus teaching her how to give to a bit.
This is better done while riding, but then you need to have developed that feel, knowing when to hold with reins while driving with legs, and recognizing when that horse gives, becomes light in your hands and rewarding
There are some beneficial ground work exercises you can do to warm her up, since she's a little older. Some lateral work in hand is always great to get her back warm for you before getting on. My lease horse was always super stiff coming out of the field and benefitted greatly from some in-hand work before getting on. Do some side and half passes from the ground, as well as turning on the fore and hind ends. I would do 5-10 minutes of this depending on how stiff or resistant he was.
Groundwork should always have a specific goal. Most of the time, when people talk about groundwork, they're talking about exercises suitable for a green or disrespectful horses, and once a horse has learned to yield all parts of the body there's little value in working at it over and over again. Just being consistent in everyday handling gives you enough 'practice.'
But if you want a way to enjoy your horse without riding (and there can be a variety of reasons for that), things like trick training, training over obstacles, liberty work, etc can be enjoyable for both you and the horse.
Dunno what happened to my reply, but essentially said a combo of what others have said. Starting with what do you want/feel the horse needs out of 'ground work'? I can absolutely see a point to 'groundwork' of various kinds, regardless of a horse being 'broke to ride' or having 'bad manners', but I don't see it(or ridden exercises for that matter) as something worth doing just for the sake of it, without a point or aim.
Are you wanting to do it because there are 'holes' or you want to get more precise, teach him new tricks, because you like to play with your horse on the ground...?
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