Category: groundwork

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attention foundations groundwork leadership ten essential lessons

Lesson 4 Energy Is Not Direction

This is fairly simple but something I misunderstood for a long time. When I was asking a horse to move off and they weren’t paying attention, I would swing a rope behind them or do something else to send them forward. If they were getting in front of me I might swing the rope ahead of me to ask them not to run into me. This was logical and easy to understand- I swung the rope to create a bundle of energy ( in this sense energy means movement or busyness )  behind my horse and they moved away from it.

Gradually over the last few years I have come to understand that although this does work and sometimes it is what you need, especially when you’re working with a horse who hasn’t got any kind of handle on the rules yet, there is a different way of backing up your cues where you simply treat energy as energy.

Most of what I am doing with energy is asking the horse to look for something different, to indicate to them that I would like them to try something other than what they are currently doing. Usually, I don’t actually want to have to use a swinging rope or other large scale cue to bring about this change because it is not my goal to always need to do this. What I really want is for the horse to follow the direction I am giving them without needing any further encouragement. So by using energy to direct them, I am excusing them from trying to understand my original cue. Rather than try to figure out what I am asking for in the first place, they can wait for me to change to something easier.

A useful metaphor for the way I prefer to work now is driving a car- if I put my foot on the accellerator it makes the engine turn over faster, but where the car goes depends on which gear I am in and where the steering wheel is pointed. When I’m working a horse I will set up my cue and then – if the horse doesn’t seem motivated to look for a response to it – I will create some energy around myself to ask them to look harder. This has the side benefit of encouraging the horse to try and a lot of the time I don’t need to do anything beyond getting their attention and making it clear to them that I am asking for something.

I think this is easier to understand in the saddle because most of us at one time or another have used a crop or similar to ask the horse for more life while directing with the reins or our bodies, and of course the same principles apply here- unless my horse is really confused about what I am asking and needs extra direction ( maybe we are working on yielding a really stuck leg, for example, when I might use a whip to tickle that area )  I will tend to set up what I am looking for and then put a little more life into my horse if I don’t feel them searching for the answer. It doesn’t matter how I do that, as long as the result is that the horse starts searching, because then I can guide them towards the right answer.

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energy foundations groundwork leadership philosophy ten essential lessons Uncategorized

Lesson 3: Offer The Horse A Sweet Spot

In my experience the most effective way for a horse to learn to do something, is for them to figure it out for themselves. Most of the time, the same is true of us, which is why the best teachers are often the ones who guide us towards finding answers.

When I was young I remember playing endless games of “hunt the thimble” with my granny, where a thimble ( or other small item ) was hidden and I searched for it with granny guiding me by telling me whether I was getting warmer as I approached the hiding place and colder as I  moved away from it. I loved this game, but thinking back, it was probably unbelievably boring for my granny. She was a very patient lady.

Horses in a field under a stormcloud sky
If you spend enough time making sure your horses are comfortable around you, pretty soon you’ll find it impossible to get anything useful done in the field.

This type of approach is something I use a lot when I am working a horse- instead of saying “warmer and colder” I just find something that is mildly annoying and allow them to figure out how to make me stop. A good example might be working a horse who is strongly attracted to the arena gate. This is one of the many things that you can correct a hundred times and still have a horse who will drop to the gate every time. Instead of endlessly trying to steer away from the gate I will choose a place that I would like us to go instead and very gently ask the horse to take me there. When they drop towards the gate I will just do something irritating – I typically just rhythmically slap my thigh, something I learned from Ross Jacobs, but the exact thing doesn’t matter; some people will work the horse briskly in that area instead – so that when the horse gets where they want to go, it’s not as good as they thought it would be. Usually they will start fidgeting and looking for a way to make me quiet down and as soon as they face where I want to go, the slapping stops. When they turn away it starts again. After a couple of tries they will probably figure out where they need to face, so then I am looking for them to take a step in that direction. I just keep working patiently at this until the horse decides to go to where I asked in. This can take quite a while and to a lot of people it would look like a long cut, but if you want a lesson to stick, nothing compares with your horse figuring things out for herself.

I use the same approach when leading – I want a horse to generally lead up beside me, putting me roughly where the saddle would be. I do this because that way I can see where their attention is, because it is really useful for groundwork which I treat as very similar to riding from the ground and because it gets the horse used to being a little ahead of me. Consequently when I am teaching a horse to lead I try to set things up so that sweet spot is right beside me wherever I go. I am at the centre  of an imaginary letter ‘X’ – as long as the horse is beside me on the left or right, things are really calm.  If they drag behind, things get more energetic, if the try to get ahead or push into me, things get more energetic, if they just walk alongside me life is very comfortable, the work isn’t too hard ( certainly easier than having to put up with all that energy and movement around them if they drag ) and pretty soon we’ll take a break and they will get lots of scratches.

As we develop more refinement in our riding, I try to create that sweet spot around my horse as we work too- making it really comfortable for them to stay with me so that they learn to choose to be where I am mentally as well as physically.

There is a difference in philosophy here- I am not thinking in terms of asking the horse to move away from something that is uncomfortable for them as much as offering them a place that is comfortable and doing what I can to help them to find it. Once your horse figures out that you can offer them comfort, they’re going to really search for it, and that will make everything you do together smoother and easier

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foundations groundwork training

Three ways to ask a horse to back up

I use back-up a lot in my training. It makes life convenient both on the ground and in the saddle and it provides a useful starting point for correct carriage and for releasing the poll when a horse is carrying a lot of brace there. I have two main ways of approaching this.

The first way is to ask by squaring up in front of the horse making direct eye contact and stepping towards them. If they don’t move back ( many horses don’t the first few times ) I make enough fuss that they decide that being around me is a non-awesome thing to do and take a step back. If in doubt I make more fuss rather than less because when one is ineffectual it tends to mean that one is teaching the horse to ignore one’s own cues. I would rather the horse overreacts a little and I can tone down my cue next time than that the horse doesn’t react and I have to pick things up next time. The big thing I never do in this situation is to shake the lead rope under the horse’s chin. I try to keep that really steady. I definitely don’t want the horse to throw their head in the air and shaking a lead rope really contributes to that, also it can be ineffectual as that is below where the horse is looking if their attention is on you. I will normally slap the tail of the rope against my chaps to make some noise and energy but you could also wave your arms around, jump up and down, just do whatever it takes to get a change. As soon as the horse steps back all pressure is off and you give them some thinking time. Then you set it up with the more subtle cue again. If you have to go beyond that more than a couple of times you are not making enough fuss when you make a fuss. If you stop making a fuss before your horse moves, you’re teaching them to ignore you. I want my horse to think they are training me not to be crazy and annoying, that way they may buy into the process a little more.

I mention that way of backing a horse up first because that is the back up that I will use in day to day life- if I am going through a gate or we get stuck on a track while I’m leading, that is how I will back my horse away. It also is what keeps me safe if the horse is anxious because it is a big part of teaching them not to run over you.

When I am working towards riding, I have a second cue. This starts standing beside the horse’s head and I hold the lead rope in my hand with the thumb pointing down and ask them to lower their head. I just keep the pressure there until they offer any downward movement then release it. This is a great exercise for teaching the basics of pressure and release. If they really resist and brace in the poll I might slowly rock my hand left and right so that they have to resist both a vertical and lateral movement. That is difficult so they tend to give after a little while. I might work on this over a few sessions as part of our basic work, until the horse can lower their head on demand and keep it lowered – often they will first offer a kind of nod, so once they are starting to drop their head one needs to ask for a little more time. I am looking for a head lowered so the poll is roughly level with the wither, so it’s not super low, just at a level the horse would hold it when relaxed. Once I have that, with my hand in he same place I will ask the horse to bring their chin a little towards their chest. This process is normally a little like the original lowering, but once they figure it out you can ask them to bring their chin back a little and they will probably step to release it. If they don’t, just wait for them to come through and maybe make a little noise if their feet are properly stuck. The moment they move, you immediately release the pressure and give them some thinking time ( of course you give the horse thinking time after every significant release, which should be close enough to every release ) after a little work you will find that by asking back with a light release for each step, you can get a lovely smooth back up with the horse’s head in a good position. In my experience this is very easy to transfer to the saddle and because you have already worked around the braces that most horses carry, it can be a starting place for working on softness in the poll and neck.

I have one other good technique too, working from the saddle. If you have a horse that responds well laterally to your leg, you can start in the saddle by setting up your body in the position for backup ( opinion is divided on what is correct and it seems that as long as you are consistent, it doesn’t matter too much ) and have the rein ready to close the door to forward, but don’t pull back, just don’t allow forward. Then ask the horse to step their back end to the left, then to the right, then to the left until they get a bit irritated and step back. Immediately release all pressure and tell them what an awesome horse they are. After a minute or so, set it up again. The advantage of this is that you get a back-up that starts from behind and pulls rather than a push from the front feet. You will know when you feel it because it is unlike what you are accustomed to.

Remember if you are working on this that back-up is a two beat movement and that horses can back up fairly quickly. Watch for loss of straightness ( often caused because you get one foot stuck ) and don’t ask for too much too soon. Once you do start to get it, however, you can use step-by-step release to encourage the horse to keep backing up for as long as you want. Horses can back up way faster than most people ever ask them to, there is no harm working on varying the speed as well as the distance that you ask your horse to back up. If your horse starts bracing on you, it would be a bad idea to release until they quit, though that can mean waiting them out for a few strides. Persistence will be rewarded in this- it is an area of training where a little work gives a lot of benefits.

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energy groundwork learning people tack and equipment training

The Use Of Tools

This article by Mark Rashid is a typically insightful look at the use of tools in training.

There are tools I always use – rope halters with a spliced 12′ line – and tools I sometimes use such as flags, training sticks, dressage whips, crops or lariats. These aren’t things I use every day, but I find it very useful to keep them in the toolbox.

At various stages in my development as a horseman I have needed these things. I simply couldn’t get whatever I was working on at the time to work without them. That still happens – sometimes with a new horse I will use a flag to amplify the energy I am producing so the horse I am working with can figure out it would be useful for them to tune into me. I suspect that part of the reason that Mark doesn’t need tools like that is that he has so much more control over his energy and intent that he can get by on those alone, and it is my intention to be the same one day. I remember watching Steve Halfpenny demonstrate something and then drop the training stick and say “I need you to see that this is coming from me and not the tools” – it is really easy for us, as we learn, to see someone using a tool and assume that the tool is how they are achieving their goal. Whenever I am using a training tool of some kind, I am trying to see ways to avoid needing it next time around, learning to let go of them is part of the process of refinement.

In the opposite direction, I will often suggest my students try using a particular tool because they haven’t yet got the level of refinement that I have and I’m not a good enough teacher to pass on my expertise immediately. I want people I am helping to be able to feel what it is like when something is working correctly. Once they have that feeling we can begin working on using the tools less, until we are working from feel alone, but a lot of the time if we don’t start with something to make up for that lack of refinement, it makes their job harder. I always try to make the point that the training tool is Plan B and that once we get everything working according to Plan A we should be able to dispense with it altogether. Training tools are typically a physical solution to a communication problem and those are somewhat different domains, so they are seldom the best fit if you are interested in getting to how your horse feels.

As for me, although I do still go back to that toolbox, it feels as though the more I do, the less necessary it becomes. These days I don’t mind going back to things that I have used in the past because it happens increasingly infrequently. I think of it as something like the progress to recovery after a broken leg- you might start out needing a wheelchair, then crutches, then maybe a stick and later you only need the stick occasionally, but you need all those things until you get to where you can walk unassisted and if you need to use one of them again for some reason, there is no shame in that. You just can’t let yourself become dependent on it.

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attention catching groundwork the horse's mind

Catching a reluctant horse

I had done a few sessions with Cash before I bought him – that was how I knew I wanted to buy him – and I knew he could be a little unwilling to be caught. He was very ear shy and he was also worried about going through gates and being ridden, so there were a lot of reasons that he wasn’t keen to be caught. Consequently he wore a halter while he was out and he was usually caught using a scoop of mix and clipping on a rope when he went to eat it.

When he came to stay the first thing I did when I put him out was to take his halter off and let him loose to explore his new field for a while. Later in the day I came back with a halter and he allowed himself to be caught almost straight away. I was impressed, so I gave him a pony treat and let him go again. After a minute I went to catch him again. This time it took an hour and a half and I had to go through the whole process of teaching him to be caught. As you can imagine, I was very pleased I had decided to test that.

Setting Cash up to be caught.
At least he was facing me at this point- a good start.

What I do with a horse who doesn’t want to be caught is to spend a while following them around. I don’t chase them, but as long as they want to walk away I follow them. If they want to stop I stop, if they give me an ear or look at me I step away. The moment their attention leaves me ( if they start grazing or looking at other horses or whatever ) I start approaching again. As I mentioned previously holding the horse’s attention is the starting point for any work you do with their mind.

After a while they figure out that they can approach me and I move off, which gives them some control over the situation- as far as the horse is concerned there is something going on that they have a part in, rather than me just trying to do something to them. Fairly soon the horse will start coming up to you to sniff you and investigate you at this point and be ready to accept you in their space.

How I progress depends a lot on why I think the horse is choosing not to be caught- as with many situation where a horse chooses not to do something, their decision making is on a continuum between “I have better things to do” and “I am afraid.” My aim is for them to be in the middle, where they are unafraid and want to spend time with me.

With a horse who doesn’t want to be caught because they don’t feel like it, I will tend to push them a little when they decide to move away from me- if they want to face me or approach me, I will back off and take off the pressure, but if they want to walk off then I will perhaps change things so they have to trot or canter instead. At the very least I want there to be no benefit in moving away, so I certainly need to make sure that they don’t get to eat or rest when they aren’t paying me attention. A consequence of this is that if you have a large field and you don’t want to spend a long time and get worn out, you might want to do this in a restricted area at first. You could also do it from the back of another horse, but if you’re placed to do that you probably don’t need my advice in the first place. Likewise it is easier to work on it if they aren’t out with a herd of other horses – you don’t need to do anything different if horses are around, but they are likely to get in the way, try to push the horse you are aiming to catch around and generally make the process take longer.

Cash was afraid, so I worked at the other extreme, trying to set things up so he didn’t feel that he needed to run away from me. I spent a lot of time on my approaches watching his balance and looking for him preparing to leave,  then just waiting on that point so he didn’t have to. By this point I had his attention and he quite wanted to approach me so if he started to lean away or prepare to turn and I backed off a little he would often relax a little and maybe turn back towards me.

When he would stay still when I approached, I didn’t go straight for haltering him. I spent a while walking most of the way past him and just petting him on the rump then moving slowly forwards, rubbing on him. That gave him plenty of space to move if he needed me to and made my approach less threatening to him while also making my company pleasant. The first couple of times I did this, I walked away after I reached his shoulder to give him time to think over what had just happened.

Once I could stand at his shoulder I would rub on his neck and mane, still facing backwards and reaching under with my left hand to pass the halter up to my right hand without stopping rubbing on him. I was very careful and gentle with this and careful to avoid his ears as any contact with those bothered him. Whenever we made what seemed to me like a significant positive change I would give him a pony treat and walk away. I don’t hold a strong opinion on the use of treats with horses- sometimes with some horses it’s a good idea, other times with other horses it’s a bad one. If the horse is afraid and they’ll take the food then it is probably helpful as long as they are still able to give you their attention rather than obsessing on treats.

A few times during the process, especially as I got closer to having the halter on, Cash got concerned and had to leave but each time it was quicker to get back to where we had been and once he was caught and got treats and came in for his evening feed it was meaningful to him and it only took a few more sessions until I could walk up to him in the field and catch him. He’s still wary if you change anything, though – if I have his leather travelling halter rather than our regular rope halter he’s decidedly sceptical- but in general he’s now very happy to be caught.

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groundwork the horse's mind training

Keep your distance

Without wanting to get all Mark Rashid on you ( and without claiming to be a hundredth of the horseman that he is ) I used to be a martial artist at one time. Not a particularly good one, but I did train diligently for a long time, which is an excellent substitute for talent. One thing that is ever so important to a martial artist is the distance between you and your opponent- if you get too close they can easily attack you before you see it coming. The starting point in the art I learned that you wanted to be far enough away that you could see the whole of your opponent without having to move your eyes.

I have no interest in taking such an adversarial pose with my horse- of course not- but that doesn’t mean that I want them any closer than that. This is something I have really had to work on over the years because horses tend to want to be quite close in to you. This isn’t just a consequence of excessive friendliness, although if a horse has had a few pony treats or a lot of scratchies they might want to be near you for those reasons ( and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as they will move away when you ask them to.)  The more relevant  reason is that once they are confident that you aren’t going to harm them then they will start to explore whether or not they can push on you. Most of the time horses figure out the world and their relation to it through two questions:

  • Do I need to run away from it?
  • Can I push on it?

Very often one will start a groundwork exercise perfectly positioned and end up a lot closer to the horse than one planned to, they are masters of controlling their position relative to yours- that is what millions of years of evolution as herd animals have taught them.

Zorro disengaging
Here I'm far enough away from Zorro that I can see what is going on with his whole body.

It is important to maintain that distance, however, because that is what gives us the bigger picture. Details are all-important in horsemanship and we need to be able to see how the horse is carrying their head, what shape their body is in, where their feet are landing and how they are carrying their tail. It is very often once we get caught up too closely in what one part of the horse is doing that we lose track of the whole picture and whatever exercise we are working on goes straight out the window. The need to work at a useful distance from the horse is one of the reasons I favour a 12′ line rather than the shorter lead rope that many people in the UK appear to favour.

There is a secondary benefit as well, one that is particularly valuable with a more unruly horse- nobody ever got bitten, kicked, struck or trodden on by a horse that was a long way away from them. If you are in any doubt about how a horse is likely to behave, then you would be wise to keep them at a safe distance until you are sure that they don’t regard you as an opponent.