How groundwork fixes (or prevents) more than what you wanted to work on... I got called a magician by one of my clients today- who is about 7 years old! Her pony Princess had a bit of attitude on the ground and had her a little nervous of doing anything with her let alone riding. Over the past few weeks I have worked with Princess on desensitising and sensitising- she mainly needed sensitising as she had attitude about being asked to do things such as yield and circle. As I always do when working with a clients horse with them I teach them what they need to do also. We have been working on having Sasha confident to handle Princess (once I was happy that Princess realised biting and kicking out wasnt an option!!) and today Princess showed huge improvement in attitude and Sasha was able to go through all the groundwork herself with success. I then asked how she was to handle her feet, as I hadnt tried to touch them at all yet.... Sashas worried look when she thought I was asking her to pick them up told me all I needed to know! I said is she a bit funny about her feet then? She said yes... Well due to all the good groundwork we have done I was able to simply touch Princess gently on her front legs and she picked them up for me and stood happily. This is when Sasha said to her dad Georgias a magician! Look she can pick her feet up! haha Apparently Princess normally rears when people try to pick her feet up! I never once did anything with Princess to teach her to pick her feet up happily, but due to the good consistent groundwork we had done to get her mentally balance (relaxed, responsive and willing) she was relaxed enough to stand, responsive enough to pick her feet up when asked, and willing to hold them up for me.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 10:02:47 +0000
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