Lynn’D Farms

Long Live Common Sense!

By Steven and Anne Duchac

As professional trainers, one of our biggest goals is to see our clients become confident enough to go out and enjoy their horses.  We encourage them to have fun, whether that means trail riding with a group of friends, participating in exhibitions or attending clinics, competing in horse shows, or taking regular lessons with a local trainer.

The more you do, though, the more you open yourself up to information, opinions, and comments from different authority figures, friends, acquaintances, and even strangers.  It can be a real challenge to sort through all of the things you hear, so what we tell people is, “use your common sense and listen to your intuition.” 

Recently, a client of ours called to ask about something she’d been told at a horse show.  Lori owns a Trote y Gallope, a gaited horse similar to a Paso Fino, and when she purchased Tomahawk, he had never been trained to walk.  (Many trainers of this breed focus only on the gaits the horses perform at breed shows.)  Tomahawk was calm and friendly on the ground, but the moment you swung into the saddle, it was off to the races!  Any attempt to slow him down could result in huge explosions.  It took several months for him to walk for even ten or twenty steps at a time.  After Lori took Tomahawk home, she continued to work diligently on control and relaxation under saddle and has been able to take part in exhibitions, shows, and large group trail rides.  At the show she was asking us about, she did a modified dressage test that required her to walk throughout the entire pattern, and they were able to do it!  The judge pointed out, though, that Tomahawk had an overdeveloped muscle in his jaw area, and she told Lori this was “toxic.”  Lori was very concerned and asked us what the judge meant.  We explained that sometimes this type of muscle development can be indicative of a horse that has a habit of bracing against the bit, but that we’ve also seen horses who have come out of the womb looking like her horse, but have very soft mouths, necks, and backs.  In short, we said that if Tomahawk seems like a happy guy most of the time, and she feels like her overall progress has been in a positive direction, then she probably doesn't have much to worry about.  Someone thoughtful enough to ask this question would almost certainly know if their horse was in a terrible state of toxicity!

Using your common sense is the best way to ensure you stay on track with your horse.  We have clients who devoted themselves to a particular trainer for years, but were never satisfied with their progress and even felt like they were going backwards in confidence and skill level.  We also have clients who have bounced around from one trainer to another without taking enough time to fairly evaluate whether the methods were working.  In any case, you should always understand the methods you or your trainer are using, they should make sense to you, and over a reasonable period of time, you should see that they are effective. 

If you’ve run into a problem that just isn’t improving, stop beating your head against a wall and try something different!  You may have the best hunter trainer in the world, but she may not be able to fix your horse that refuses to load on the trailer.  Your dressage instructor may not feel confident dealing with a horse that bolts or tends to be explosive.  Your reining trainer may be the best in the business, but he may not be the person to help you make your spooky reiner confident on the trail.  A good trainer knows when something is outside of his skill set, and frequently, he or she will encourage you to find someone who can help you with your particular area of difficulty.  Ethical professionals in the industry would much rather see a client succeed with help from other sources, than keep the client for themselves and see him fail.  But even if a trainer is not supportive, you should never hesitate to do what you know is right and necessary for you and your horse.

We heard a very memorable story from a woman who had a huge warmblood.  The horse was so heavy in her hands that a ligament in her arm actually popped off.  And yet her trainer kept telling her that she wasn’t strong enough to ride him well!  The bottom line: it’s your body, and it’s up to you to keep yourself safe, and to determine what feels right and what feels wrong.  Furthermore, it’s your horse.  You know him better than anyone, and it’s your prerogative to make what you feel are the best decisions.  Listen to advice and instruction, consider it and weigh it, take an appropriate amount of time to determine what seems to work and what doesn’t, and then, go with your gut.  

The following is from a Q and A column for Horse N Pet magazine.

Q:  Why is groundwork important and what can it accomplish?

A:  Groundwork is important because it happens anytime you and your horse are in each other’s presence.  You may have heard that anytime you’re riding your horse, you’re training it.  But the truth is that we teach our horses what we expect from them every moment that they are around us.  We don’t even have to be directly interacting with them: for example, the behavior that we tolerate from them while they are standing on the crosstie teaches them about our expectations.  

Groundwork goes far beyond lunging a horse or doing specific leading and driving exercises.  It takes place when you enter your horse’s stall, when you go out into the field to catch him, when you feed him, when you groom him, when you hose him off after a workout, and when you take his halter off and turn him loose.  The attitude your horse displays in all these situations indicates whether he sees you as the leader in the relationship, or whether he believes he is the one in charge.

The qualities that you want your horse to have under saddle will be either promoted or undermined by his behavior on the ground.  This is the time to instill a pleasant and cooperative attitude, steadiness, responsiveness, etc., especially with young horses.  When you come to get him, does he greet you with ears pricked forward or does he turn his butt to you?  Does he stand quietly when he is tied, or does he pin his ears and threaten to kick when you are tacking up? 

Your standards for his behavior are especially important in what people normally think of as groundwork – lunging and leading/driving exercises.  Notice the attitude he has when he executes your requests and ask yourself whether it is something you’d like to ride.  (This is especially important for horses who have not yet been started under saddle.  The ground work is where you create the type of horse you want to ride.)  The way your horse moves when he is on lead is important, and many horses either run and act up, thinking thst it's "play time," or they are so bored that they seem to be barely dragging themselves along.  Neither is good; if you are going to the trouble of working on lead, you want your horse to move with relaxed and enthusiastic steps that would be a pleasure to ride.  After the first couple of rides, the work on lead should never be used to “take the edge off” a horse, and you should not allow bucking, kicking out, bolting off, or any other dangerous behavior.  You wouldn’t want your horse to engage in any of these actions while you were handling him, leading him, or riding him, so he should behave equally as well whether he is attached to a six-foot lead or on the end of a thirty-foot lunge line - esentially ANY TIME HE IS IN YOUR PRESENCE.  He should also be light – easy to move forward and easy to stop.  If he is dull and heavy to those requests on the ground, nine times out of ten he will only be worse when you get on.     

Creating positive habits with your groundwork starts by being aware of your own attitude and way of moving.  Horses are incredibly perceptive and sensitive to body language, and the way we use our bodies changes with our emotional state.  If we are frustrated, we tend to be a little sharper in our movements and we can be too quick to make corrections.  If we’re tired, we are slow to make requests and even slower to follow up if those requests are ignored.  If we’re tense, we do everything in a hurried manner, we don’t think as clearly, and we don’t make our requests as clearly.  Pretty soon, we’ve created a horse that is a mirror image of us.  On the other hand, if we’re relaxed, calm, and confident, we are more aware of our horse’s good and bad behaviors.  We are thoughtful in our requests, and accurate and fair with our corrections.  When we have this type of attitude, our horses relax and gain confidence in us. 

There are many different tools that can be used for groundwork: a halter, a bridle, a surcingle, a dressage whip or lunge whip, a lariat, a lead line, a lunge line, or long lines, and side reins, just to name a few.  There are hundreds of articles, books, and videos devoted to explaining the correct use of these tools.  All of them should be used with knowledge and skill, but more importantly, they must be used with timing and feel.  When your horse ignores a request, you must gradually increase the intensity of that request, and the moment he shows any attempt to answer the request, you must release your pressure.  Even a wrong answer earns a release when it comes from sincere effort.  It is the release of pressure that teaches the horse.  Even something as simple as throwing grooming brushes at your horse when he paws on the crosstie can be effective – if you stop the instant he stands still.

Then, they see us as the leader, they treat us with respect, they cooperate with us, and they do everything they can to keep us safe.  Your horse should always put you first by being respectful of your space and eager to comply with your requests.