2022 Riding Journey

#37 Just Groundwork

This lesson was just groundwork with Mariah, since we'd had rain and my trainer wasn't sure about the ground.  She did offer to have me ride Mariah at the walk, and since I'm not riding but once a week now, I half regret not choosing that. 

But, I do really enjoy groundwork and I do want to learn more about it.  

Vivie and James came for their lesson.  James worked with Cordell some more, but Vivie got to try out working with Rugar, which she hasn't done before.

I groomed off Mariah, at first thinking I was going to ride her, but then decided to do some groundwork instead.  Sometimes we groom before we groundwork, and sometimes we don't.  It depends.

But I was done before Vivie and James were, so I decided to head on out to the big outdoor arena and start in on it to remember what groundwork feels like.  I thought that if I got the the warm up part of things over with, my trainer would have us go onto some newer things, and I was right.

I started off with having Mariah go around me, then yield the hindquarters, and then continue on.  She did pretty good with that. Then I added in some changes of direction, and she did good at that.  She wasn't over-reactive, but I wouldn't have said she was especially calm and happy either.

My trainer came out with Vivie and James.  She asked me what I'd been doing, and I told her, and then she had me show it to her.

When I had Mariah yield her hindquarters, she said that looked pretty good for Mariah.  Then she told me she wanted me to work on having Mariah stop looking to the outside with her head so much and look more to the inside of the circle.

To do this, when Mariah started looking to the outside, I was to ask for more bend while making sure to keep driving her forward.  I was to press on her side more than I was on her hindquarters.  It's similar to asking her to yield her hindquarters, but different as well.

When I first started doing it, I wasn't doing it often enough for my trainer, and also wasn't quite sure what she wanted.  So, Trainer had me stop and switched horses with me.  (She had Blueberry out for groundwork, the sweet bay mare.) 

With my trainer demonstrating, I was able to see more of what I needed to do. The goal in doing this is also to get Mariah to step more to the inside with her inside foot.  See, the way Mariah likes to go around on circle is tilted, so that her withers tend to lean towards you and her inside leg steps more to the outside. My trainer wanted that inside leg to be more willing to come to the inside, and by having her more bent / looking towards us, that would help with that.

When I took Mariah back from my trainer, I was a little more certain about what my trainer wanted. (My trainer told me that when Mariah was doing good and 'wrapped around' me, then I could walk away from her and lead her around some.) But I still had to fumble around a bit.  It helped that my trainer had started Mariah in on this and done a lot of the hard part of it for me.

Despite my unsureness, we apparently did something right, because my trainer told me that looked really good and to go ahead and walk her around a bit.

When walking her around, my trainer had me let my lead rope out a long ways.  Like, so long.  And then she had me pick up my walking pace until Mariah felt some tension on the rope.  Then Mariah would pick up her own pace and the tension would be gone.  This would help with Mariah's leading, as she is not the best horse in the bunch when it comes to that.

After that, my trainer had me do something that I've never done before.  She wanted me to have Mariah on a circle, like usual.  Then I was going to stop her, but not the usual way, which is where you stop turning and the horse faces you. 

Rather, I was going to come up alongside her, walking towards where her head was going, until she stopped.  I'm still not exactly sure how that works.  But my trainer made the point that she couldn't turn to face me, she was to stay alongside or parallel to me.

Then, when she'd stopped, you'd pause a moment, before asking her to step to the side with her front feet and go the other direction on the circle.  It's the second half of a change of direction.  Trainer said that when you change directions the normal way, you set up a horse by moving the hindquarters so that moving their front feet is easier.  But this way, a horse has to set themselves up so that they can move the front feet.

And when Mariah moved her front feet, we wanted her to step to the side with her inside foot, with her outside foot crossing over. We don't want her outside foot crossing behind her inside foot.  It's working on getting her to step more to the inside with her inside foot, instead of always leaning towards the outside.

And, of course, with Mariah we wanted her to do this exercise with a 'happy' expression.  For the most part, she behaved herself well before this, not getting too upset when we corrected her.  When Mariah was doing these well, then I could go off and lead her around some as a break. 

For the most part, the exercise went well.  I had some trouble getting her to stop sometimes without asking her to face me, because I'm not sure how the mechanics of that work.  But getting her to step to the side wasn't too hard, and most of the time she used her legs correctly.  She also wasn't too upset about all of it.

We worked on that for awhile, and then when I thought it was good enough I went ahead and led her around the arena for a bit, practicing some of that leading exercise as well. 

The next and last thing we did was something that wasn't actually done on a circle.  My trainer was having Virginia do this with Rugar, and then decided to have James and me do it as well. 

The exercise is to walk alongside a horse, as if you're leading them, but to have the length of rope between the two of you as long as possible.  In other words, you're leading the horse, but having them stay as far away from you as possible.  And you're supposed to push them away, by 'pushing' on their side, neck, and head.  This really tests your groundwork done beforehand, and if the horse is actually listening to the rope, or taking it's cues from you.  

This was tricky to do.  When asking the horse move away from you,  the instinct is to ask the horse to bend toward you while swinging the end of the lead rope at them.  But that would just turn the whole thing into a circle, which can't happen.

Honestly, I think I just stumbled on the right feel by accident.  But we got along alright with it.  Again, I just had to resist the urge to not pull on the rope to make her turn and face me when asking her to move off.  We did that we me on either side of her.

And that was pretty much it for groundwork.  Lots of new stuff that I'm honestly not sure how much of it I grasped.  But still, pretty neat to do.  And Mariah was so nicely behaved and responsive throughout all of it, by the end she was really 'hooked' onto me / the rope more than she was before. 

I should also note that my trainer brought out an extra flag and mentioned me using it a couple of times.  See, basic ground work can be done with just a rope halter and long lead rope, that's the way I've always done it.  But a flag is often what my trainer uses in the place of the end of the lead rope.  It's a handy tool, but one that I've never used before.  Apparently my trainer thinks that I'm advanced enough now that I could start doing some work with it.

She encouraged me two or three times to use the extra one if I wanted.  But I wasn't about to touch that thing without one on one supervision.  A rope seems a lot safer to me right now.  But if I'm to advance in groundwork, that is something that I'll have to learn to use, and I do want to advance in it. 

So, there we go.  This entry is rushed and not my best one.  But that's alright, hopefully you can understand it.  I'm not sure I'm going to have a lesson of any kind this week because it's rained pretty good today and the ground will probably be soppy in the morning.  But we'll see. 

Actual lesson 10/18/2022

P.S  I'd like to say that Vivie and James both did well.  They're so eager to learn, the both of them, and Vivie in particular thought the groundwork was fun.  I really do enjoy lessoning with them, for however long it lasts :)