A New Partnership!

ESTABLISHING A FOUNDATION FOR A PARTNERSHIP

We were excited to work with a novice horse-person and their “new-to-them” horse today. Seeing that conversation between the horse and human develop into a partnership is probably one of the most inspirational experiences.

If you have read any of this blog you know how much emphasis we put on groundwork to get started when building a partnership. We started with some “liberty” (off the lead line) work in the small pen. This allowed us to really look at this new horse and its attitude and athleticism without being connected by a rope. We noted that after exploring the new environment, the horse was interested in his human. In short order we achieved getting the horse’s interest expressed through giving us “two eyes” and locking on to us. That is always a fun moment! We followed this up with some Basic Circles and worked on all three gaits both up and down to check emotional reactions. Then a little Desensitizing to the lead rope (we alternate rope, stick-n-string and plastic bag in most sessions). Some Lateral Flexion followed and then we moved into Backing with Steady and Rhythmic Pressure. Rhythmic Pressure Backing took the horse a little while to understand but there were real improvement in fairly short order. This is also a tough exercise for the human to get ”right”. Very proud of both the human and the horse for working so hard!  More Desensitizing and Flexion and then we moved into Hindquarter Yields with Steady and Rhythmic Pressure. More Desensitizing and Flexion and then we moved into the Five in One Circle exercises at the walk and trot. We then worked on Leading with Softness and a few other groundwork exercises to really help these two make that connection and improve communication. We like these exercises quite a lot because it touches on all the major body parts, engages the horse’s mind and is good for them physically too!

The arena footing was pretty wet after the prior day’s heavy rain so we opted to play it safe and not ride. The groundwork session was super productive and gave the human a bunch of new exercises to add to their skill set and helped the horse understand what the new expectations are in a fun and calm manner. The major win (at least in our mind) was to see how the new partnership was forming and how the horse calmly looked for leadership from his new human. You can’t put a price tag on those moments in your horsemanship journey. It certainly does the heart and soul good too!