FALCON CREEK FARM NEWSLETTER

(August 2003)

IMPORTANCE OF GROUND TRAINING

So why is ground training so important? The bigger question might be, why do so many horse owners skip this part of their horse’s training? The value of ground training (GT) can’t be stressed enough and it sets the stage for success or struggle for you and your horse both on the ground and in the saddle.

GT helps set hierarchy between you and your horse. Horses need to know where they stand in their pecking order, and people are part of their pecking order. Most horses don’t care where they are; they just need to know where they stand with you. It is up to the handler to let them know. If there isn’t a clear message as to who is in control, the horse will take over. The horse isn’t behaving badly when he does this, it’s just what they need to have established in their minds; it’s part of their survival strategy.

GT also helps establish personal space. This should be a two way street. Handlers should not stand in their horses’ personal space, and vice versa. Does your horse crowd you, walk over you or stand too close to you? Have you been run over before or stepped on because of this? While horses are cute and cuddly sometimes, establishing personal space, and expecting the horse to honor that, is crucial, and may save you from injury some day. It helps cement the “who’s in charge?” question for them as well. Personal space should only be invaded at the handler’s request. It should be by invitation only, not when the horse decides he wants to.

GT can establish how to communicate with your horse. What are his “buttons”? What excites him, stresses him or what does he respond to well? How does he respond to stress? Does he blow up or shut down? If you have a horse that rears when pushed, wouldn’t it be nice to know that before you ever climbed in the saddle? What are his areas of weakness? What are his areas of excellence? Does he respond well to the pressure of touch? What might the handler need to do more or less of to get a desired response? These questions can be answered before the horse is ever ridden and many of these can be worked on at ground level. When the horse is finally ridden, he understands that much more of what is being asked of him. For example, if a horse doesn’t understand to move away from the pressure of the hand, he isn’t going to know how to move off of leg pressure when asked to yield to it. It’s much easier to teach him this from the ground, in hand.

GT helps teach horses to perform transitions. While it may sound trivial that a horse should know how to go from a walk, to a trot, to a canter, it isn’t always that easy for them to do it when asked, and to hold it together, as if maybe in a round pen. Many horses do not know how to go into a trot smoothly, and stay in a trot until told otherwise. They can learn to become responsive to cues for transition changes, or to speed up or slow down within a transition. GT helps a horse learn that. Once learned, riding him will be much easier.

GT can help a horse learn how to stand still. It’s amazing how easy standing still is to do but so many horses will not do it. We want them to be still when tied, when we get on them, or when we just want to stop and talk to someone while we are riding. If a horse knows how to stand still, you won’t be fighting them all the time while you are on their back. Horses don’t just know how to stand, they have to be taught.

GT builds trust and a basis of positive reinforcements between handler and horse. It develops consistency in the handler and helps increase focus and awareness of the horse at work. It establishes the conditioned responses so many of us are looking for, to teach a horse that when he does what we want, the pressure (mental or physical) is removed. These traits all carry over to saddle work.

GT teaches a horse to respond to and respect body language and to wait for instructions from his handler.

Many problems that riders experience on a daily basis could have been prevented from more time spent on ground training. Do you need to spend more time on the ground?

Happy Riding!!!

Comments and feedback are always welcome!

Leslie @

Falcon Creek Farm

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