Shane Hoover requested a column on the best way to work your horse
when you have very little time to spend that day. Given the short
daylight hours that come with the winter months, plus the weather
constraints, this sounded like a perfect February column to me!
In the training program
we do at the ranch, we never, ever ride a horse without first
starting with a bit of groundwork. Even the most well-trained horse
in the world can have an “off day” and my staff and I always take
the time to check in to see what their physical, mental and
emotional states are prior to riding, and to see where their level
of resistance may be at.
The next set of
exercises is great for that, along with really focusing back on the
fundamentals for your horse. As such, whether you do it prior to a
ride or as the only thing you have time for one day to do with your
horse – it’s a great way to spend training time with your horse.
To begin with we do
concentrated circles. We need to teach the horse to go forward, to
go forward consistently, and to keep the body position such that the
horse is nicely bending around us. So if you want to start with a
left circle, your left hand should be on the leadline three to six
inches from the snap of the halter. Unless your horse is already
very soft, I like to use a cowboy halter and a twelve foot lead. Now
your cue spot for forwardness will be the left hip bone. I use a
dressage whip with the popper taken off the end. I then tap at the
point of the hip until the horse goes forward. As with everything in
horse training, make sure you release the pressure (stop tapping)
the instant the horse goes forward. I also bring my arm down with
the whip to the ground to fully release the pressure, since even
holding a whip up in the air represents pressure to many horses. Now
you may have to do this several times until the horse gets it and
walks forward consistently. Please remember too, while you should
not be beating the horse, you will get better results from tapping
once or twice more firmly if needed to begin with, rather than
continuing to lightly tap over and over and over again without
getting results. You will just desensitize the horse to the
pressure. The cardinal rule is to use as much pressure as you need
to get the reaction, and nothing more than that. Then you can use
less and less as the horse gets the lesson and becomes lighter and
more responsive. Also, please use pre-cues. Before you begin tapping
with the whip, cluck or kiss (whatever you want your go-forward
sound to be) every time. Then if no movement you go to the tapping.
But with a pre-cue, over time the horse will learn to respond to
that alone to avoid the tapping.
So when you are looking
for the left concentrated circle, keep working to the left
consistently and make sure the horse is moving off with nice energy
– a real “go someplace” kind of walk. As you continue this, you
should notice the horse start to bend around you as it learns to
give to the pressure of the halter. This is also a good beginning
lesson to teach horses to go over obstacles and to trailer load.
This encourages them to bend and be supple throughout their body in
addition to going forward whenever you ask. In this case, what is a
great go-forward exercise is also gymnastic work as well – which I
explain in detail in my Ground Manners & Leading video tape. As a
bonus this lesson also carries over into the saddle beautifully, and
is quite useful starting babies as well.
Once the forwardness is
solid in both directions, we can then work on moving the hips over.
Now we can only move onto this when we have established a nice bend
to the body. Imagine a ten foot circle, with the nose, shoulder and
hind legs aligned on the arc of the circle line with yourself in the
center. The reason the bend must be there first, if you do not have
the bend and the shoulder is stepping inside the circle, you will
not be able to get the hips to move over. But when you can do this,
it teaches the horse to engage its hindquarters. Here again – we
have a gymnastic exercise which physically develops the hindquarters
and topline, while also enhancing suppleness. Also starts teaching
the horse to stop its feet.
To move the hips over,
once the horse is moving in the left circle with the bend in its
body without showing any resistance, you take your left hand and
bring it toward the horse’s left hip, looking for the hip to move
away. Now even if the horse takes one step - release the pressure.
Otherwise maintain the contact until you get at least the one step.
Then get the horse going again in the same direction and continue
the exercise until he immediately swings the hip once you pick up
the line toward his hip. Your eventual goal is that the horse will
turn on the forehand on the ground. Which again – has great carry
over into the saddle.
The final part of this
lesson is backing. To do this, get your horse moving forward with
nice energy, again, he should be consistently soft with a nice bend.
Then you pickup to move his hips over, and once he does, you will
release the pressure, pause and then ask him to back up by making
contact with the lead rope toward the horse’s nose. Once you get
even a single step backwards, release. You then start all over
again, repeating the circle, moving the hips over and asking for the
backup. As the horse responds better, you will ask for two steps,
then three, and more. Your eventual goal is twenty to thirty steps
backward, with your horse looking like he is moving on rollerblades
he is so smooth. Once his feet are moving freely, continue backing
him until he softens at the pole (between the first vertebrae and
axis) with his chin down toward his chest. Again, another great
gymnastic exercise that builds the hindquarters and topline.
What this set of
exercises gives us is suppleness, an obedient horse and the tools to
start solid ground manners, along with helping to instill a good
work ethic in your horse. These lessons also establish you as the
leader because you are controlling your horse’s space. The number
one principle with horses is that space equals leadership.
Some horses can learn
this in a very short time, two to three hours. Others may take weeks
depending on how much baggage they may have, how naturally willing
they are and of course – how consistent you are with your timing and
feel on the release when you see they are giving.
In any case, when you
only have ten, twenty or thirty minutes to spend with your horse,
this is great way to use the time! Even if your horse is completely
finished and knows the lesson, this is wonderful maintenance work -
it really cements the basics well for the physical, mental and
emotional aspects of every horse.
As I said earlier –
this is the one set of exercises we do on every horse every time we
ride. We may need to only spend a couple of minutes on it, or maybe
up to a half hour, but no matter what – we will go through this
routine to ensure we have an attentive, responsive, supple and
respectful horse.
Please remember you can
email me at cwtraining@comcast.net if you have any questions. We
also have a complimentary newsletter available that we are doing
every two months. You can sign-up for that on our website as well at
http://www.cwtraining.com.
Until next month,
Charles Wilhelm |
