The Need for Groundwork Training
Groundwork Training is the essence of a truly good horsemanship program. Without it, the untrained horse is at a tremendous disadvantage in the human controlled world, when comparing him to a horse with proper groundwork.
Let’s start with some background.
Both horses and humans have two sides to their brains, however the human has a highly developed corpus colossum allowing both sides of the brain to communicate easily and continually with each other. In horses, the corpus colossum is underdeveloped. He acts as though he has two brains, left and right. Whatever training you do on the left side, you must start all over and repeat on the right side. The horse may not even realize he just saw something on the other side of his head. This partly explains why the same object, seen from different perspectives, can produce very different reactions from a horse. You and your horse are safer in a controlled ground training environment.
One side of his brain is the thinking side, and the other is the reactive side. Mother Nature made the reactive side much more prominent and larger than the thinking side of the brain. Our job is to reverse these natural roles. For a horse to be safe and controllable, we must increase the thinking side of the brain and de-emphasize the reacting side. Both the foal’s mother and Mother Nature drummed into his head: first you flee, and then if you have to, fight. Very little “thinking” is involved in the flight or fight survival process.
Horses are prey animals. One easy way you can tell is that their eyes are set far apart on their heads and face mostly sideways. This gives them a very wide field of vision, good for spotting threats from almost any angle.
Humans and other predators (yes, we are basically predators) have eyes set close together and facing in the same direction. We go straight to what we want because we are predators and that is how predators behave. How do we as predators get a horse to do the things we ask? With groundwork training. Proper training from the ground transfers to the saddle. You train your horse for respect and good behavior from the ground. This process continues throughout your horse’s life. Training and re-enforcement are permanent parts of you horsemanship life.
I trained my horse by watching RFD-TV and adopting things I liked from the different trainers. I read and did things that I invented because they worked for me and my horse.
Most problems, like head shyness, can be either from a lack of training and de-sensitizing or abuse. When you control a horse’s feet, you control his mind (such as it is.) The more you move the horse’s feet backward, forward, left and right, the more he has to focus on you. He does not have time to worry about his head. He has to concentrate on what he is doing. There are many humane exercises that you and your trainer can do to get this control.
You can do Resnick’s Groundwork, Parelli, Cox, Anderson or Julie Goodnight. You can have a trainer come in. You can send the horse out. But no matter who does the initial training, or whatever method you use, you alone are responsible for ongoing training and maintenance of your horse’s behavior. However you do this, just doing it is the foundation of a good relationship with your horse.
When you lunge a horse left and immediately back to the right, then immediately back to the left and so forth, it is called lunging for respect and is one of the best exercises you can do. In the horse’s world, making the other guy move is a sign that you are in charge. As you keep his feet moving the way you want, your horse quickly starts to understand that you are in control. When you stop and leave him alone to think, you bet he got the message.
All of this “motion control” is a way of sensitizing your horse to your dominance as his leader. Do not use it to be a bully. You want him to follow your commands and leadership willingly, not out of fear. A strong leader makes him feel safe and happy. This, in turn, will keep you a lot safer and happier as well.
After doing sensitizing exercises, remember to do de-sensitizing exercises too. These make him accept things in the world around him that might normally cause a flight or fight reaction. Exercises like gently throwing the lead rope over him repeatedly, until he figures out that standing still gets you to stop the exercise, help him to not care about the rope as a threat. If he moves, move with him until he stops. When he just stands there, preferably licking his lips as a sign of relaxation, stop. Try to get him to stand still for at least about 15 seconds. He may even relax and cock a back leg. When you stop the motion of the rope, you are relieving the pressure he feels from the exercise. Horses respond and learn from the release of pressure. He has figured out how to make the pressure go away by being still. This is a great lesson for both of you. Remember, train both sides.
