Begin With Light Signals

An important point to remember throughout all these groundwork exercises is the use of escalating signals. If your horse doesn’t respond to your lightest signal, the volume of the signal should be turned up until he tries giving the proper response, at which point the pressure should be released altogether.

This requires being very tuned into your horse, noticing if he so much as rocks his weight in the desired direction. By consistently sticking to this system of progression followed by reward, your horse is better able to learn what is being asked of him and arrive at the correct answer sooner and with less pressure.

Groundwork Exercise: Hand Walking

When leading your horse, he needs to learn to stay beside you. Horses may be inclined to lag behind, drag ahead, or veer to the side. Establishing firm boundaries helps him understand that he must tune in to you.

A horse that lags behind can be encouraged with the use of a long dressage whip. Don’t walk excessively fast, but don’t slow down to accommodate him either. If he falls behind enough to put pressure on the lead, turn to escalating use of the dressage whip from a gentle tap up to a firm, repetitive bump as needed.

A horse that veers toward you can be corrected by holding the dressage whip perpendicular toward him while poking his shoulder with the handle end of the whip when he enters your space. This is another signal that can be escalated as needed.

If your horse veers away or drags you, walk purposefully and then give your preferred verbal cue for a halt (for example, “whoa”). A moment later, stop walking. Horses often are caught off guard and walk a few steps past you before feeling the pressure of the halter and stopping.

If your horse is one that was caught off guard by you stopping, continue this groundwork exercise on repeat until he stops at the verbal cue rather than the halter pressure. He will soon catch on that it’s in his best interest to turn his attention to you rather than to the world around him so that he doesn’t miss a verbal cue.

Groundwork Exercise: Backing

Once your horse has learned to remain attentive to you, backing can be introduced. When asking your horse to back, you should face his chest and hold the lead rope so that if halter pressure is introduced, it pulls down toward the center of his chest.

The first pressure used to ask your horse to back is a firm step toward him into his space. Second is a cluck; third is use of the lead rope toward the center of his chest. If he still doesn’t understand, it may take some taps from a dressage whip or the end of the lead rope to convey the idea.

Once he understands and moves backward any amount, reward, walk forward, halt, and reset. The goal is for your horse to eventually back in response to just the step into his space. This groundwork exercise is best done from both sides so that your horse learns to respond to you stepping toward both his left and right forelegs.

Groundwork Exercise: Moving the Haunches

The last of the groundwork exercises covered here will be moving the haunches. Stand facing your horse’s hip, and from there, the progression of pressure is identical to backing. Step into your horse’s space toward his hip, followed if needed by a cluck, then a tap from a dressage whip.

This is another exercise that should be done equally on both sides of the horse. It’s important to note that neither in backing nor in moving the haunches is the horse moved by you pulling him into position. All of his movement should be self-motivated and in response to the pressure you applied.

These basic groundwork exercises are just the beginning of many ways we can better relate with our horses from the ground. Once these concepts are solidly taught, your horse is one step closer to being a better partner under saddle due to his improved understanding.

Groundwork Exercises for Young Horses

As an important tool for establishing communication with your horse, groundwork exercises are quite beneficial in developing young horses.

In this video from Ridely, in-hand and long-lining expert Claudio Oliveira demonstrates the first steps when starting this work with the young horse. The aim is to get the horse to move away from the pressure and to listen and respond to Claudio’s voice aids. He starts by desensitizing the horse to the whip to build his confidence and once the horse understands moving away from the pressure, Claudio introduces some baby leg yield and some turns on the forehand. He emphasizes that it does not have to be perfect; the horse just has to respond. This is a great beginner’s exercise to build the horse’s confidence in the groundwork before starting with long lines. Register for Ridely PRO to access 450+ other useful training videos.

A Note on Nose Chains

If your horse tends to pull you off balance or at any time you feel out of control, use of a nose chain is completely acceptable. Some horses may be able to graduate from the nose chain, while others may not. Escalation of pressure applies to nose chains as well. Walking a horse with a nose chain doesn’t mean that the chain is being used constantly—it’s simply an additional, stronger boundary.

This article about groundwork exercises appeared in the August 2022 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

The post Groundwork Exercises to Improve Communication appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

Inactivity sometimes plays a larger role in creating poor muscle patterns than incorrect training or injuries. When a horse doesn’t move enough throughout the day as nature intended, circulation diminishes. This translates to sluggish muscles and dehydrated tissues surrounding them. Over time, this creates ingrained restriction in range of motion. This is of particular concern for senior or injured horses.

Too many of us overlook the value of schooling at the walk, thinking that there is not much to accomplish. To be clear, walk workouts do not improve cardiovascular fitness, but—fear not—cardio plays a minimal role in your horse’s mechanics and movement patterns. However, walking workouts benefit your horse by mobilizing the spinal joints and increasing stimulation of postural muscles.

It’s also worth noting that the equine lymphatic system lacks a central pump. Lymph circulation relies instead on muscular contractions. The lymphatic system helps maintain fluid balances between blood vessels and tissues, which is crucial for not only movement but immunity and injury repair.

Also read – Developing Core Stability for Horse and Rider

During any period of reduced exercise due to weather or time constraints, you can accomplish a great deal in 25 minutes with one of the following walk routines. Within each routine below, spend about two minutes on each exercise, then continue to cycle through them like a circuit until your time is up.

Walking Routine No. 1

For 25 minutes, do the following continuous circuit:

◆ Long and Low Transitions: With the horse in a long-and-low stretched frame, ride transitions from working walk to extended walk; repeat. Aim to keep his head and neck reaching down low toward the ground into a light rein contact during these transitions. He will need to use his core muscles for balance.

◆ Polish Your Turns: Interspersed with intervals of active, ground-covering walking, practice several turns-on-the-forehand and turns-on-the-haunches in each direction. Be sure to ride several energetic walk steps between each turn.

◆ Proprioception Box: Arrange a box on the ground using four ground poles touching at the corners. Ride a variety of patterns over and through the box: cloverleaf, circle around each corner, figure eight, et cetera.

Walking Routine No. 2

For 25 minutes, do the following continuous circuit:

◆ Accordion Topline: Riding around the edge of your arena in a brisk, forward walk, as you practice lengthening and shortening the reins and asking your horse to change frames from longer to shorter.

◆ Spiral In and Out: From a 20-meter circle, spiral in to an 8-meter circle, and then, maintaining inside bend, leg-yield back out to your original 20-meter circle, being careful not to lose energy.

◆ Snowman: Ride once around a 20-meter circle to the left. Then, at the top, change bend and ride a 10-meter circle to the right. Resume the 20-meter circle to the left. Your figure should look like a snowman with a fat body and a smaller head on top.

◆ Simple Ground Poles: Set up as many poles as you have available in a random fashion all around your arena. Proceed in a brisk walk over the poles, and creatively ride various turns and loops.

Walking Routine No. 3

For 25 minutes, do the following continuous circuit:

◆ Speed Changes: Ride various figures in the arena while changing the speed of your walk. Aim for four distinct speeds (super slow, slow, medium and fast), and spend 20 strides at each speed. Repeat.

◆ Cornerstone Transitions: Ride transitions to the halt every 10 strides. At every other halt transition, ask the horse to back up six to 10 steps, then carry on.

◆ Wavy Lines: Ride a “scalloped” edge around the track of your arena. Maintaining a brisk, lively walk tempo, ride a wavy serpentine with approximately 3-meter loops back and forth from left to right, and so on.

When performed consistently (four to five days per week), purposeful walking routines can have a surprisingly beneficial impact on your horse’s body. Although it’s not as outwardly visible, their value is much greater than inactivity. Your horse will thank you!

This article about the benefits of walking your horse appeared in the November/December 2021 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

The post Benefits of Riding Your Horse at the Walk appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

Walking allows for full contraction of the long back muscles in a contraction-relaxation cycle that prevents tension. Its low-aerobic effort ensures recruitment of small muscles that support the spine, the ones that create and store postural patterns.

Further, the fine-tuned motor control that is possible at the walk enables you to help your horse find more range of motion and joint flexion that will become habitual.

During periods of reduced exercise due to either weather or injury, you can accomplish a great deal in 25 minutes with one of the walk routines featured here. Even for riders with busy lives, there is no reason to not make use of these. Walking exercises during the warm up process of your ride can become extremely beneficial for your horse.

Concentrate on creating the highest quality movements and figures for these 25 minutes. Treat them with the same focus as you would a dressage test or show. You can easily extend their benefits by doing three minutes of dynamic stretches or calisthenics prior to mounting.

Within each routine featured here, spend about two minutes on each exercise and continue to cycle through them until your time is up.

How to Handle Downtime

Interruptions to a horse’s normal training routine or exercising fewer than three days per week will lead to a measurable loss of fitness after four weeks. This “detraining” effect continues up to 12 weeks, at which point a rider should consider the horse entirely out of condition.

A horse’s metabolic system and connective tissue are stressed by large vacillations in fitness, especially as he ages; every effort should be made to avoid long layoffs lasting more than four weeks at a time. Obviously, every rider will experience schedule restraints that lead to periods of lesser activity, during which the walking routines I’ve just described, at the minimum, can be used.

During periods of less activity, riders often may fret unnecessarily about the horse losing cardiovascular fitness. Instead, they should concern themselves with postural tone and fitness of muscular patterns. Horses make cardiovascular adaptations quickly and efficiently. It’s fine for them to lose fitness in their respiratory system, sweating responses, and blood volume for an extended period. Once a horse is placed back in full-time work, his cardiovascular system makes fitness gains in as swiftly as two weeks. His supporting tissues, muscles, and bones, however, will require up to four months or more.

Do not be tempted to make up for a diminished training schedule by getting your horse out once or twice a week and making him work up a good sweat with the hope that you are thwarting fitness loss. I sometimes see riders with good intentions but tight schedules show up at the barn once or twice a week, only to hook their horse onto the longeline and run him around until he is panting and sweaty. Obviously, they believe they are combating a deterioration of fitness.

In reality, they are doing more harm than good. While they are in fact taxing the horse’s respiratory system, they are allowing his postural muscles to slacken while simultaneously creating poor habits in his gymnastic muscles that build tension during these short bursts of activity without precise alignment, warming up, or signals from his proprioceptors.

Exercises: Walk Routine 1

With each of these routines, spend about two minutes on each exercise and repeat for 25 minutes.

It’s far better to forego the once-weekly, sweaty workout in place of multiple shorter sessions using exercises to recruit postural muscle effort. In sum, allow cardiovascular fitness to go by the wayside because it comes back quickly. Do not allow postural practice and muscle training to go by the wayside because you will create problems down the road.

Here is the first set of horse exercises at the walk. It includes accordion topline, spiral in and out, snowman, and simple ground poles.

Accordion Topline:

Riding around the edge of your arena in a brisk, forward walk, practice lengthening and shortening your reins and asking your horse to change frames, from longer to shorter.

Spiral In and Out:

From a 20-meter circle, spiral in to an 8-meter circle. Then, maintaining inside bend, leg-yield back out to your original 20-meter circle, being careful not to lose energy.

Snowman:

Ride once around a 20-meter circle to the left, then, at the top, change bend and ride a 10-meter circle to the right. Resume your 20-meter circle. Your figure should look like a snowman with a fat body and a smaller head on top.

Simple Ground Poles:

Set up as many poles as you have available in a random fashion all around your arena. Proceed in a brisk walk over the poles, riding turns and loops creatively.

Exercises: Walk Routine 2

Here is the second set of horse exercises at the walk. It includes long-and-low transitions, polish your turns, and proprioception box.

Long-and-low Transitions:

With the horse in a long-and-low frame, ride transitions from working walk to extended walk; repeat. Aim to keep his head and neck reaching down low toward the ground into a light rein contact during these transitions. He will need to recruit core musculature for balance.

Polish Your Turns:

Interspersed with intervals of active, ground-covering walking, practice several turns-on-the-forehand and turns-on-the-haunches in each direction. Be sure to ride several vigorous walk steps between each turn.

Proprioception Box:

Arrange a box using four ground poles with the corners of the box lifted on risers. Ride a variety of patterns over and through the box—cloverleaf, circle around each corner of the box, figure eight.

Exercises: Walk Routine 3

Here is the third set of horse exercises at the walk. It includes speed changes, cornerstone transitions, and wavy lines.

Speed Changes:

Ride various figures in the arena while changing the speed of your walk. Aim for four distinct speeds (super slow, slow, medium and fast), and spend 20 strides at each speed. Repeat.

Cornerstone Transitions:

Ride transitions to the halt every 10 strides. At every other halt transition, ask the horse to back up 6 to 10 steps, then carry on.

Wavy lines:

Ride a “scalloped” edge around the track of your arena. Maintain a brisk, lively walk tempo and ride a wavy serpentine with approximately 3-meter loops back and forth from left to right.

This excerpt from 55 Corrective Exercises for Horses by Jec Aristotle Ballou is adapted from and reprinted with permission from Trafalgar Square Books (www.horseandriderbooks.com).

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