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Training
~ Laying
Down A Horse - Part 1
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CAUTION: Be extremely careful around the horse when attempting these excercises. We don't recommend trying this on your own the first time. We recommend consulting a professional trainer, attending clinics, and seeking advice from knowledgeable horseman before asking your horse to lay down -- you can get hurt.
You don’t approach teaching your horse to lay down by waking up one morning and saying "I’m going to teach my horse to lay down today". This approach is about as risky as winning the lottery, it could happen… but, it’s not very likely! The process of teaching a horse to lay down can take a lot of time. By this, we mean time over a period of days, weeks, or months – not time all at once. If you not a patient person, don’t start down this road. There are other ways of getting your horse down on the ground in a hurry, we aren't going to discuss those here. You do this on the horse's time, when they're ready you'll know because the horse will be soft and willing to work with you. Having a horse that trusts you enough to lay them down in their most vulnerable position is a pretty incredible thing. We have learned a lot about the right and wrong ways to teach this to a horse. We’ll focus on techniques which work well for both us and the horse. Safety is the number one issue when teaching a horse to lay down. This is not something that everyone should rush out and try. Well, what good is it to have a horse that can lay down? We don't have to think too hard to come up with some reasons: Building the trust relationship; this is probably the most important thing -- the horse has to get through a lot of issues in order to trust a human to do this to them. If you get injured while out trail riding and can't mount your horse, your horse can come to you so that you can get on. If you are disabled and can't easily get on a horse, this would work well. If your horse is injured and you need to get them down for medical treatment, you can lay them down. The process of laying down We work the horse with a goal in mind of having the horse lay down with us in the saddle. While this is a long term goal, it’s what we are going to work for and everything that we do will be focused around this goal. In order to work to this, your horse must move off a feel. For purposes of illustrating how to do these tasks we had to break this page up into three sections (there are too many photos, and the pages load slow). You'll have to click on the next section at the bottom of each page to continue. Like almost everything else that you do with your horse, you need to teach them in a way that they understand. The steer wrestling method or WWF body slam isn't going to work too well to teach a horse lay down -- especially when you want to build a trusting relationship. You'll find people that will tell you that this is the way to teach a horse to lay down. Laying your horse down is not about forcing them down on the ground. We have seen people do this, it's not pretty. Here’s how we start:
Before you begin, you have some assignments: Assignment #1: Go out and watch your horse lay down at liberty. Focus on what is happening with the front feet, back feet, body, and shifting of weight. Notice how they will bend at the knee, rock back on their hind feet and slowly lower their body to the ground. Watch where the head and feet go down and the body of the horse lays. This is all important stuff. If you don’t have a clear picture in your head of what the horse does naturally and what you are going to ask the horse to do, you shouldn’t be doing this. Assignment #2: If your horse is laying down in the pasture, can you approach him without the horse getting up and running away? Try this. See if you can approach your horse and pet or scratch him while he’s laying down on his own. Try to put some weight on the horse – sit on his hindquarters if you can. Don’t move fast around the horse and try to keep a calm submissive posture. If your horse is comfortable with you while they are down in a vulnerable position, you are doing very well.
You can do this with or without the saddle on. We recommend starting with the saddle since the next step requires the saddle. With your rope halter and lead rope attached to your horse stand next to your horse’s shoulder. It doesn’t matter which shoulder you choose, left or right – you should be able to do this from both sides of the horse. For purposes of teaching this to the horse, only work off one side of the horse until you have this working for you softly. Reward your horse every step of the way with this excercise or you'll spend a lot more time than you need. You have to approach bowing with individual goals too. This is one of the steps towards laying down, but we want the horse to bow off a cue also. Ideally, we want the horse to softly bow with us in the saddle. At the end of a dressage test, one of the required movements is for the horse and rider to stop and the rider must take off their cap/helmet and bow to the dressage judge(s). One of our friends has taught her horse to bow to the dressage judge at the same time that she bows. This is off a cue from her leg. This all starts from the excercises below. We are looking for softness in the bow, notice the posture of the horse in the pictures below. This mare is relaxed, her head is down in the "turned off" position. You don't see a cloud of dust. And she's not fighting me over anything that I do to her. That's not to say that she didn't brace or resist the first couple of times that we did this, but we worked through these issues with reward each time that she did the movement correctly and then each time that she did the movement correctly with softness. Your job is to recognize when you have reached each of these points and reward for them.
You'll probably want to start this excercise with the saddle on the horse. You can use the saddle horn leverage to get the horse to move backwards. One thing that you will probably run into is that after about the 15th try at bowing down, the horse will probably decide that he doesn't want to give you the foot anymore. You may have to work on the "give" of the foot before you can proceed with this excercise. Don't get discouraged, and most importantly -- don't take any frustration out on the horse. Be patient, you will be rewarded in the end.
This excercise is hard for the horse, don't overdo it. To be successful, we work with a horse to bow 3-4 times a session and then quit when get a positive result. Most importantly, we reward the horse every step of the way with a release and reward that they understand. There are two ways to go with this; 1). working on the bow with us in the saddle 2).working on laying down. You need to be able to have the horse bow without the saddle and from both the left and right sides of the horse -- softly, before you move on to the next step. Continue
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There is some risk involved in horse training for both you and the horse. Horses can cause serious injury. Be sensible and don’t attempt anything that is outside your comfort level. This information is intended to illustrate how we apply our training techniques, you are responsible for using this information wisely. If you don’t feel comfortable with your abilities or an exercise, don’t do it! Seek advice or assistance from a professional horse trainer. Stay on the "high side of trouble". Natural Horse Supply Training Information, (c) 1999 Natural Horse Supply. All rights reserved. Duplication of any material prohibited without express written permission. This prohibition is not intended to extend to personal non-commercial use, including sharing with others for safety and learning purposes, provided this copyright notice is attached and you have written permission. E-mail to submit comments or request reproduction permission. Last updated: July 17, 2003 |
Teaching
a horse to lay down is a huge trust issue. This is an advanced horsemanship
exercise that should not be attempted unless you have complete control of your
horse and you feel comfortable with your horsemanship skills. You need to be
extremely cautious, there are a few things that cause this to be dangerous;
the horse may strike out with its hooves while it’s going down, the horse
may step on you, and the horse may fall over onto you (have we talked you out
of doing this yet?). We don’t work with our horses on laying down
until we have gone through all of the groundwork issues and have a dead calm
horse – this is important! We would never consider working with a horse
to lay down unless the horse can move it's feet softly, has respect for your
space, and already trusts you enough to let you touch it anywhere on it's body.
We have some horses that are years away from getting to this -- don't force
it to happen.
The
first thing that you have to do is teach your horse to bow down on one leg with
a feel. This is relatively easy to do. First, you need to set yourself up for
success, by this we mean position yourself and your tools so that this will
be easier for the horse and yourself to accomplish. 
