The Ultimate Guide To Horse
Training
Natural
Horsemanship Groundwork
Eric Bravo
Horse Training Videos
In this article
we're going to talk about groundwork horse training. While this is
often associated with natural horsemanship, you can incorporate
groundwork with any training style. Groundwork is simply a way to start
working and handling a horse without sitting on his back where you
might get bucked off or he may bolt.
But let's get one thing straight, natural horsemanship doesn't mean just doing groundwork. With groundwork horse training, we're after getting our horse to be light and responsive to cues, to learn to respond to the reins and cues we will give to the body with our feet while riding, and to listen to our direction. The ultimate purpose of groundwork is to prepare your horse for being ridden.
Natural horsemanship isn't strictly about groundwork, its simply a particular approach used to train horses that speaks to the horse in his own language, the language he naturally understands, and avoiding the use of force or coercion. In future articles, we'll talk about natural horsemanship in the saddle.
What are some training goals you want to set for your horse on the ground? I can think of several, including:
Leading also serves to establish the human (YOU) as the "leader of the herd" that your horse should trust and respect, and look to for direction. Its a great way to accomplish this without using any force or "dominance" whatsoever.
When working with your horse, you can develop a little groundwork routine to systematically apply all of the techniques. As your horse gets trained it will take less and less time. In the beginning, you may need to spend an hour with your horse on the ground. Later, you might just do 20 minutes a couple times a week or 5 minutes before a ride as a refresher and to remind your horse who is boss.
You can communicate requests for movement to the horse by applying pressure. Pressure can be applied either as direct physical contact, or simply by directing energy at a certain area of the horse. Horses will yield to pressure and this is how we direct them while riding. You can start teaching the horse how to respond to your cues with groundwork exercises, and this is an integral part of natural horsemanship training (but we'll see it carried over to riding in a future article). In this sample horse training video, Eric demonstrates moving the forehand and hindquarter by applying pressure.
Groundwork horse training with natural horsemanship is pretty elaborate and detailed, so there isn't enough space to cover it all in one article. We'll be talking about specific aspects of groundwork training in future articles.
You may also be interested in our horse training video software, which lets you view Eric’s horse training videos right on your computer, and its Mac and PC compatible.
For more information about horse training videos software, click here
But let's get one thing straight, natural horsemanship doesn't mean just doing groundwork. With groundwork horse training, we're after getting our horse to be light and responsive to cues, to learn to respond to the reins and cues we will give to the body with our feet while riding, and to listen to our direction. The ultimate purpose of groundwork is to prepare your horse for being ridden.
Natural horsemanship isn't strictly about groundwork, its simply a particular approach used to train horses that speaks to the horse in his own language, the language he naturally understands, and avoiding the use of force or coercion. In future articles, we'll talk about natural horsemanship in the saddle.
What are some training goals you want to set for your horse on the ground? I can think of several, including:
- Respect of personal space
- Learning to respond to the reins lightly (flexing)
- Teaching the horse to move the forehand on our cue so that we will be able to direct the nose when riding (i.e. point the nose and have him go where we want)
- Teaching the horse to move the hindquarter, so that he will respond to our feet and legs while riding
- Getting the horse to see us as his herd leader and earn his trust and respect
- Backing up the horse
- Communication-having the horse listen to us for requests to walk, trot, and canter (teach this with circling/lunging)
- Teaching the horse to pay attention at all times-the horse should listen to the herd leader to decide whether to respond to something that spooks him, for example.
Leading also serves to establish the human (YOU) as the "leader of the herd" that your horse should trust and respect, and look to for direction. Its a great way to accomplish this without using any force or "dominance" whatsoever.
When working with your horse, you can develop a little groundwork routine to systematically apply all of the techniques. As your horse gets trained it will take less and less time. In the beginning, you may need to spend an hour with your horse on the ground. Later, you might just do 20 minutes a couple times a week or 5 minutes before a ride as a refresher and to remind your horse who is boss.
You can communicate requests for movement to the horse by applying pressure. Pressure can be applied either as direct physical contact, or simply by directing energy at a certain area of the horse. Horses will yield to pressure and this is how we direct them while riding. You can start teaching the horse how to respond to your cues with groundwork exercises, and this is an integral part of natural horsemanship training (but we'll see it carried over to riding in a future article). In this sample horse training video, Eric demonstrates moving the forehand and hindquarter by applying pressure.
Groundwork horse training with natural horsemanship is pretty elaborate and detailed, so there isn't enough space to cover it all in one article. We'll be talking about specific aspects of groundwork training in future articles.
You may also be interested in our horse training video software, which lets you view Eric’s horse training videos right on your computer, and its Mac and PC compatible.
For more information about horse training videos software, click here