(uplifting music)
- Welcome, today, we're gonna be talking
about working your horse in hand.
Working your horse in hand is a wonderful way
to build their strength and flexibility
without the weight of a rider
and help them to be more responsive
when it comes to their under saddle work.
I'm gonna be giving you three exercises today
that you can do with any horse at any level
to help improve their flexibility, so let's get started.
(calming guitar music)
Good boy, so the first exercise
that we're gonna be doing here is working on lateral work
and lateral work is a wonderful way to improve
your horse's flexibility on the ground here.
It helps you with side passing, leg yielding,
and eventually, half passing under saddle.
So I'm gonna walk you through the steps
of how to start this off.
The first step is you wanna make sure your horse
is totally comfortable with the whip.
So I see the whip as an extension of my arm,
I want my horse to be completely relaxed,
not afraid of it at all, and completely comfortable,
so let's see how we do that.
So to introduce the whip,
I'm gonna stand at my horse's shoulder here,
and I'm gonna start by just rubbing him
over his back like this,
and I'm gonna work my way over his back
and down his legs, under his belly,
and just all over his body.
Now, if he were to move around
and get worried at any time here,
I would just keep rubbing him until he stopped and relaxed
and then take the whip away, put it back on him
until eventually he gets to the place where Sonic is here,
where he's totally relaxed with the whip.
So you can see how I can rub Sonic all over here
and he's completely calm with the whip
and shows no signs of distress.
So now I'm ready to start doing a little bit
of the hand work with him.
So I'm gonna start by finding my position,
which is right here at the point of the shoulder,
and then I'm gonna organize my rein and whip.
As I organize my rein and whip,
I'm gonna start with my left hand.
I wanna hold my thumb up on my left hand like that,
and I wanna hold relatively close to the bit
so I can kinda work in this range or a little closer,
but I don't want my hand to be too far back like this
'cause I have less control.
Moving on to my right hand,
I wanna hold my rein and my whip
in this position right here.
Now, when I started in hand work,
I had my rein and whip in this position,
which I commonly see,
but I found that I have more control
if I hold my whip like this.
So to find this position with your whip,
you're going to put your hand through the reins,
pointer finger forward and thumb up.
You're gonna set your whip down
in between your pointer finger and your thumb here,
and curl your pointer finger,
set your thumb over the top to secure that whip,
just like that.
And you can see that my whip is off my horse,
so I'm not accidentally hitting him as I work with him,
and then I turn my wrist here to touch him with the whip.
This gives me really good accuracy
on where I wanna touch and allows me to release easily.
Now when it comes to my reins,
I wanna be able to start with my right rein here,
which is my outside rein,
To correct him, I'm gonna be sliding
that hand down to release, I'm gonna slide up.
So again, correct, and there's release.
Inside rein, I'm gonna go up to correct,
then down to release.
So now we know that our outside rein to correct our horse,
we're gonna be sliding it down to correct,
up to release inside.
We know we gotta pick up this way to correct
and bring it down to release.
When we go to move our horse laterally
to start this exercise,
one, imagine that he's inside a box,
so there's a wall here, there's a wall wall here,
and one directly behind him.
So the only door that's open is that way.
So as I do this, I've got just these two basic tools.
I've got a one that says go forward
and one that says slow down or whoa,
which are my reins here.
And when he's balanced between those two tools
or those two aides, he's gonna move laterally.
So we're gonna start this movement off
by standing here at his shoulder.
I'm gonna touch him with the whip
and encourage him to go forward a bit.
When he starts going forward,
I'm gonna pick up with my hand here to let him know
to not go any more forward than that,
and then release him when he crosses over.
A little touch with the whip if he stops.
And at the beginning, it might not be pretty.
He may move around or wanna go past you, just be patient.
There, you could see him back up a little bit
and just let your horse figure it out.
So there he had some really nice steps,
so then I'm gonna slide up and reward him for that.
Wanna good boy.
So now we're gonna move on to talking
about our next exercise.
So now we've done our lateral work with our horse.
We've had him move more sideways like this.
In our next exercise, we're gonna be having him
step his shoulders around like this
with his hind and he's staying pretty still
and his front end is pivoting around like that.
And this is going to help to improve
your horse's shoulder flexibility
and it's going to help your horse
to be able to sit back more under the hind done.
So the position is the same as it was before
as far as our reins and our whip go.
But the difference is when I was moving my horse laterally,
I was here, and when I'm moving his shoulders,
I'm gonna be more in front of him,
so I'm thinking about this more of as a circular motion
so we're gonna be moving in an arc
and I'm gonna stay right in front of this front leg.
So as he steps it over,
I'm gonna keep walking a little in front of it
to block him from going forward.
So I'm gonna ask him to walk a little forward here,
step in front, release him every time he steps over,
just like that.
And you can see our Sonic really has to sit back
and find his balance there to make that crossover.
So it's a great exercise to help him with that awareness.
Now, when you start doing this exercise,
your horse may struggle with getting a very deep cross
or keeping those hind legs as still and wanna move around.
So as you start doing this, just do a little at a time.
If he's struggling to cross, having crossed a little bit,
and then walk him out of it, and give him a break.
And each day, build to being able
to do a more and more complete circle.
When Sonic started doing this, he really struggled,
but you can see now after breaking it down
a little at a time,
it's really pretty easy and smooth for him.
So in our final exercise,
I'm gonna be focusing on getting this inside hind leg
to be more mobile and to step more underneath my horse.
This is gonna help to strengthen that inside hind
and increase its flexibility.
So I'm gonna be doing this by changing my position
to facing my horse's hind in like this.
So you can think my belly button
is pointed towards his inside hip.
I'm gonna hold my rein and whip in the same way
I was holding it before, I'm gonna send him forward.
I'm watching this inside hind leg to step under
and his belly here and cross over.
I'm gonna let him go in a circle around me.
So I'm gonna send him forward
using my outside rein to control that outside shoulder,
(calming guitar music continues)
and if slows that hip down,
I'm just doing a little tap right there
to encourage him to step it more underneath.
And right here, you can stay always crossing
that hind leg over,
and he's got a little bit less crossing going on
in the front.
So that inside hind is a little more active
than the inside front leg is going in a smaller circle.
(calming guitar music continues)
So when you guys are practicing these exercises,
remember to take your time
and do 'em a little bit at a time.
It's very common, we start these off
for a horse to really not cross very well
with moving sideways, moving the front end,
or moving the back end, so build to those deeper crosses
and give your horse lots of breaks and rewards.
When you're doing this work, it's going to help your horse
not only is it gonna help in your ridings
to help 'em understand how to move away
from your pressure better and be softer in your aides,
but it's also gonna help him to be able
to think through different problems.
I love working horses on the ground
because it gives 'em a new perspective
and really helps me to be able to understand
a little bit more about them
and then to build a relationship with me
a little bit better.
So I hope this video was a help to you.
And I hope that you keep enjoying your horses
over this next week.
I'll see you in the next video.