hello it's josie and today i would like to share with you the exercise that i think
helped me probably the most with my timing and feel on groundwork i have done part one
of it which helps teach the horse a little bit if he's really green or if you're really green
and not real sure about this i'll just link it up here go watch that first then come back
so this exercise you can do in a halter or a bridle i'm doing it in a bridle and rebels
actually saddled today because i'm going to get on after this video and do some work on him so
you can just take two minutes before you ride your horse and do a little bit of exercise and really
improve not only your timing and feel but it improves your horse's obedience
so your horse needs to know how to give his head to pressure how to go backwards and forwards from
the rein if you don't your horse doesn't know how to do that go to this video and teach him
that first then go to part one of this and then come here let's get started you need to remember
when you're working with the horse on the ground that you deal with your reins like
you would if you were on his back so they go over his head so they're not hanging around down here
when you're handling uh when you're doing from the right hand side of the horse you use your
right hand it feels a bit well it did to me in the beginning it felt a bit awkward but i've soon got
used to it on the left hand side of the horse you use your left hand you hold your rein the same as
you would if you were sitting on him so the rein goes between the ring finger and the little finger
and it comes through your hand up over the top and your thumb holds it there that's because i
can use my ring finger like a sponge and get him to respond to that i call it a clock face
exercise because you need the accuracy it's the accuracy that helps your timing and feel
if you don't have your accuracy you're never going to develop timing and feel
so the first thing you need to do and please don't miss this step is you need to draw a
circle around yourself depending i don't know how big that's how big mine is and then i want you to
put the four points of the compass you can call it a compass or the clock on it so i've got 12 3
6 and 9. now the aim is to move the horse and stop him as accurately as you can so we want him to be
perpendicular to the circle when he stops it's not going to start like that all right so nothing ever
starts perfectly it's you build on and that's how you learn and then um the reins control the
front end of your horse and the whip controls the back end of your horse he's not allowed to step
his front feet inside your circle and you're not allowed to step outside your circle this
is a bit like a game but it actually helps that's what helps you develop your timing and feel so i'm
going rebel has not done this and in all honesty for probably how old are you now he probably
haven't done this for three years or more i do these exercises with them when i start them under
saddle then i use the techniques to move them around at home who and he's also had probably 10
days off for christmas holidays so he's going to be a bit sluggish because that's his natural way
of going reins go over the horses if you're riding him so they're not dangling around on the ground
i'm going to move him and what i'm going to do at the moment is i'm just going to attempt
to move him from where he is at the moment and around to three o'clock so let's see how we go
so i push the face out whipped to add some energy and as you can see rebel keep coming
and now stop now and i'll think oh i thought i was going to overshoot
three but i'm not too bad there's the three o'clock mark so my front um my front my hand
stopped the front feet and here's where timing of feel comes in and every horse is different
you have to work out how a more reactive horse you need to start sometimes slowing down here
a slow Stodgy horse i need to keep going so now i'm going to move from 3 o'clock
to nine o'clock so i i ask him to start moving with my hand going out there and then the whip
and he's a bit daydreaming and i'm heading to nine still so my hand leads him and steady there
now he stopped back there so that tells me he didn't have enough energy
horses that have got a lot of energy when you stop them you don't need to use the whip
the hind end will just keep going let's go back the other way now so i'm going to move
from where he is now around to three o'clock so hold my rein push him out ask him to move stay
in my circle slow the front feet down nope slowed down too much because rebel is really quite lazy
and now i'm going to move his hinds out because he's not quite square on my circle
good boy and that was too much energy too much tapping because he wouldn't move and
i increased the intensity a little bit too much and then he took a bigger step
i learnt from that now i'm going to go from i can't even remember what that number was
now three o'clock to six o'clock so i'm going to take him out think about slowing him down
now and he stepped in on my circle then so i actually had to push him back out with my hand
so it's good that he hasn't done this for ages because these are the sorts of things
your horse is going to do in the end i used to be able to walk my horse around the clock face
one hour at a time so i moved the front feet one step let's see if i can get him back around here
now he came in so i asked him to go i blocked him
with my hand i don't know if you can see that you might have to go back all the way around to
nine o'clock slow the front end here here slowing the front end and the back end went out good boy
so you can see he overshot it so our accuracy is a leaving a tiny bit to
be desired i'm a perfectionist i like him to stop right on it he's a horse he doesn't care
i might just move him from there to six o'clock good one backwards that was that's a boy woah
and i'm gonna square him up woah and we're going to come back this way so if he gets a bit lazy
i am just going to woah he's not coming i'm actually going to speed this up a bit
to try to give him a little bit more energy
so my hand when he's not leaning on the rein or not pulling away or not pushing in is just
it's just there there's just a very light feel with the rein when he comes to step in he leans
on it i i block him and ask him to step back if he goes back i
might have to hang and he might pull a bit on it and then he comes forward
again around sorry i had chosen three o'clock in my head so you always need to make a decision
as to where you're going so i hope that helps you practice it let me know how you go as you
can see rebel and i need to do a little bit more um practice on that i'm i'm going to not even get
on him at the moment today i'm going to sit here and get him a little bit more reactive
because he's very doughy and that actually does reflect under saddle he can be difficult to get
to go forward and in front of my leg so what you see down here correlates to what you see under
saddle so i'm going to actually give him a little tune up today before i get on him thanks guys