3 Exercises for Confidence with your Horse

#dressage #confidence #horseriding

Three Groundwork Exercises to Give You Confidence with your Horse

Having confidence with your horse can come down to many things, but being in control on the ground with them is one of the first places you can start and sets you up to have control everywhere else with them. If you’re in control, they relax.

Today’s video gives you three exercises to start you off with your groundwork control and give you confidence with them.

How to lead your horse properly.
How to get your horse to bend properly.
How to get your horse to lower their head.

These exercises seem simple but they go a long way in helping you to
Getting control of your horse
Getting respect of your horse and,
Getting your horse to relax
These exercises will teach you to ask for and receive gentle submission from your horse that will allow them to be confident with you and in turn give you more confidence with them. Here’s some points to remember when executing these exercises with your horse, but be sure to watch the video as there’s a lot more detail in there!

To lead properly you need them to be
Walking between their head and shoulder
Not dragging
Stopping when you stop

To get them bending and yielding the hindquarters you want to
Walk them in a circle around you
Keep inside bend
Shorten the rein and bring your hand up to the saddle
Ask for them to yield while in that flexed position before releasing the rein.

To get your horse to lower their head on command you need to
Place your hand on their poll
Apply gentle pressure downward
Release the pressure when they lower their head

Watch the video, where I go into much more detail on each exercise, while working with Claire, a horse who’d been with several trainers before coming to me and used to just run over the top of me! These exercises have helped me turn her into the calm horse you see in the video!

[christinemann]

Yes! Excellent video, as usual! I mostly do groundwork with my big guy. I hope to have the confidence to ride him this year. Thank you Amelia

[vernalin]

Excellent video. I love how you showed the 'wrong way' - we often are not quite aware of what we are doing. Thanks, Amelia!

[kathiegarnsey]

I am happy to have these confidence ideas in my tool box. I love your poem?

[ellenhemm]

Great video! I am working with my new horse and learning groundwork exercises for respect.

[jimenaburnett]

Thank you for the great video on groundwork!!!

[annieluppnow]

Yeah also loved this. What may also be great is to see the progression from pushy mare to today's video. How to "problem solve" from where she was to get to this point

[lauradelorenzi]

Today I practice this AND my horse do everything.... I'm love... Big thanks

[valeriedickson]

Thank you Amelia. I always tell my lesson students if the horse doesn't respect them on the ground how do they expect them to respect them when they are on their back.

[bojo]

Thanks a million for this! Very helpful.

[jenniferhill]

I completely resonated with this video. I recently got a very dominant gelding who was all wonderful at first from his prior owners training and then he started just doing all that you said with me—walking all over me and so on. Then he started getting more and more aggressive on the lunge line and round pen and ended up charging me constantly. I quickly got guidance about the groundwork you’re supposed to do and after that it was like a different horse. He’s an amazing boy and very bold and brave and at one point I was coming home in tears and scared of him. Just those simple things you showed TRULY MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE! I thought I had made a huge mistake buying him but it was all my lack of understanding. And there isn’t any loudness or meanness or anything on my part. Simply body language and control on the ground the way you showed it. Thank you!!

[myhorses]

Yes! This is a very helpful (and timely) video. I have a new horse and have recently struggled with confidence in the saddle as I'm getting to know him. Starting my rides with these exercises will hopefully help me feel more in control when in the saddle. Thank you!

[terriecasey]

Thank you, Amelia! I’m teaching my 15 year old granddaughter to ride and will surely add these lessons to our repertoire!

[margaretarmendariz]

Amelia, I love this! It just reaffirms what I do and what I expect of my horses on the ground. Three or four mornings a week I listen to your videos as I am getting ready for my day. They always put me in an energized positive mood for the day with my horses.
If you are open to a little advice, which I rarely give out because I have my hands full with my own horses and life, could I make a suggestion.
Instead of multiple clucks with your voice just make one. In one of my first lessons 40 years ago with the great Hungarian Gabor Foltenyi he told me as I clucked away with my horse....Only cluck once. If you make multiple clucks the horse will begin to tune you out just like they tune out your legs if you are constantly banging them on their sides. Make every cluck mean something whether you are on the ground leading or longeing or in the saddle. He said if you need to initially coordinate it with your whip and/or your spur so when you cluck the reaction will be cleaner and crisper. Then later all you may need is the single cluck.... It sure has come in handy in the dressage arena as I am riding away from the judge and I need a little gas!

[mbololifestyle]

this is great. Have a new horse (a Marey mare!) and I have broken my finger so can't ride. Am just going to do groundwork to build our relationship instead and this has encouraged me even more. Thank you!

[tommangan]

Brilliant … the first (important) steps of building the partnership with your horse. So we’ll explained and demonstrated Amelia 😊

[susangawley]

Excellent video! Love doing groundwork with my guy and this was a very helpful visual. Thank you Amelia!

[elianecosta]

Thank you Amelia! Very good this video!

[ffmm]

I really like your canal, because you give specific advices/exercises, not just generalities

[Lynne]

This was very helpful. I think it’s time for me and my horse to have some refresher sessions.

[lindawalker]

Thanks for posting this! As an Equine Physio I think it's so important for us the rider, but also very important as a good warm-up for your horses core muscles and balance, before we hop on and make it harder for them. It also gives you essential information about how your horse is going each day, so you can make wise choices for how much and what kind of riding work your horse needs...as opposed to a set plan of what you as a rider want to work on! Horse first, then the riding gets sooo much easier :)