Giving the Horse a Pathway to Solve Problems, Part 2

by Mary Gallagher

I’ve been continuing to experiment with finding fun ways to help my horses in training solve their own problems and change habits.

First off, variety in your training keeps the horse engaged and learning on multiple levels. Even better, using real world exercises on the ground that set up the horse to deal with their own issues gets positive results far faster than schooling from the saddle. In this video, I help a green mare with the habit of ‘swapping her leads behind’ find a better way, with minimal input from me. Were I to correct the same issue through riding….let’s just say we’d be at it a while.

Giving the Horse a Pathway to Solve Problems, From the Ground

By Mary Gallagher 

Very often, the mistakes the horse makes under saddle are mistakes by the rider in terms of balance, connection and lack of lightness in communication. Horses want to move rhythmically and efficiently, and too often it’s we that get in the way. Like other trainers, I am good at working through issues from the saddle, but I’ve been practicing new ways to reduce training time and get even better results from the ground.