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Training
~ Laying
Down A Horse - Part 3 ("Printer
Friendly" version of this page)
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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. Part 3: Laying down with a feel The concept is much the same as laying down with the saddle on, but the horse is going to move off a feel without any hardware on the horse. The reason we do this is that we want the horse to lay down off of the pressure that we give without going to the saddle horn to assist, we don't want the restriction of the saddle, and we want the horse to be able to feel our touch when we have them on the ground.
Remember what you saw when the horse layed down on it's own at liberty? Remember how they bent at the knee, rocked back on their hind feet and slowly lowered their body to the ground? Keep this visual picture in your mind when you are asking the horse to do this excercise. Watch where the head and feet go down and the body of the horse lays down. Remember you want the head to come towards you and the feet to go away from you. Use the lead rope on the opposite side of the horse to make this happen. You can tilt the nose out with the lead -- the feet are going to go on the same side of the horse that the nose is pointing, remember this! Notice that in the pictures I do all of my work on the back side of the horse -- STAY AWAY FROM THE FEET!
When the horse wants to get up, let him. Remember, don't restrain the horse on the ground. It took us two weeks to get this horse laying down softly like this (and we think we know what we're doing). We spent some training sessions with the horse just working on picking up the feet and releasing softly. We spent 4-5 training sessions getting the bow to work softly for the horse. Then we spent about 10-12 sessions getting the horse to lay down on the ground. We could have gone faster, but what's the point? There is nothing "instant" about the gratification that we get from working our horses this way. It seems kind of odd, but the more we ask of our horses, the better our relationship is with them. The horses that we have spent time working this way want to be with us more than our brood mares who don't get this kind of attention or exposure. Continue
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Hang
out with the horse while they are on the ground. Reward him, scratch his
withers and his head, rub him all over on his body. Put weight on his
back, sit on him if he'll let you. I like to sit on them as if I were
going to ride him up off the ground (because that's my intention). 