Episode 37: Do This During Groundwork With Your Horse



Before we begin I want to clear up something about last week’s podcast. I randomly mentioned something going on with Popcorn’s ear. He has a papilloma virus or ear plaque, but it’s improving dramatically.
In this episode, I’m going to explain the first communication I developed during groundwork. I’m also going to talk about the difference between leading versus drawing. In my final segment with Dr. Monty, we answer a listener question about increasing exercise tolerance versus overworking.
“When horses interact, and they have a lot of respect for each other, they have a bigger bubble.” Stacy Westfall Share on X
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SWS037.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Speaker1:
Podcasting from a little cabin on a hill. This is the Stacy Westfall podcast. Stacy's goal is simple to teach you to understand why horses do what they do, as well as the action steps for creating clear, confident communication with your horses.
Speaker2:
Hi, I'm Stacy Westfall and I'm here to teach you how to understand, enjoy and successfully train your own horses. In this episode, I'm going to explain the first communication that I developed during groundwork. I'm going to talk about the difference between leading versus drawing. And in the final segment with On Call with Doctor Marney, Doctor Marney is going to answer a listener question about increasing exercise tolerance versus overworking. Before I jump into this week's podcast, I'd like to clear up something about last week's podcast, which was I kind of randomly mentioned something going on with Popcorn's ear, and it was a little unclear there. Basically, it's sometimes people will call it ear plaques or ear papillomas, and basically it's a papilloma virus that will attack the horses ear. So when you look inside the ear, you'll see a white, scaly type of a plaque that is inside the ear. And you'll notice that a lot of the horses that have that seem very sensitive and popcorn has a lot of training, and he will tolerate and he will let me handle him. And I have tried all kinds of different treatments, but I will put a link in the show notes to show some pictures and veterinarian manuals that show what goes on there, but a lot of it is just really tough to treat. But again, that's what I was mentioning. I see improving dramatically and that's what I was talking about last week. Anyway, let's jump into today's discussion as I venture deeper into a discussion on the horse's body.
Speaker2:
I was trying to figure out how I'm going to lead you guys through this, and I'd like to continue with what I was talking about last week, which is the communication during groundwork when I'm first developing communication with a horse during groundwork. It really depends a lot on how much education that horse already has. So I'm going to jump in with some of the things that I do with a horse that walks into my barn and somebody let it in, and it already leads and has some basic knowledge. And then I'm going to give you a bigger picture of how I see this working. So when somebody brings a horse in to my barn and maybe they're here for a lesson or a clinic, some of the first things I'm going to want to do, I want to know, can I get this horse out of my space? So if this horse was just led in off the trailer, I might ask that horse to. I want to have it stay out of my space, at least the four feet the length of the stick and string. That might be backing out of my space. It might be having them turn and face me because they're already further away. But I want to make sure I can keep them back and out of my space. Because for me, the number one rule is that we both have that bubble.
Speaker2:
Now, most of the horses that come leading in here are, you know, broke to ride. And so you can brush them and you can saddle them and you can lead them. So they're going to be really comfortable in the human space. So the first two that I end up finding I use the most with this type of horse is either the back out of my space or turn and face me. Those are the typical 1 or 2, number one or number two, and they kind of flip flop depending on what the horse needs. So if I've got a horse that's really respectful of my space and I go to do some groundwork, a lot of the ones that are really, really respectful, but almost a little bit like I think I need to leave. They're going to be the ones that are going to try to kind of turn and leave, or maybe pull on you on that lunge line and try to go somewhere away from you. So the good news is they're out of your space. You're safe. They're safe because you're not sharing the same space. The difficulty becomes, you know, if they get really heavy, some of them will. Have you ever had the pony drag happen to you? The pony drag is when okay, typically ponies, but I label it the pony drag because almost everybody can remember at some point, maybe a horse, but maybe a pony that when you were leading it, it kind of turned and got its head at that 45 degree angle away from you, maybe closer to 90.
Speaker2:
And then it gets this leverage and it just drags you away. Was I the only one with a pony like that? But if you've ever had a horse that was really pulling on you, you know they're stronger than you. So if I've got a horse that's respectful of my space, one of the first things I end up finding is maybe they've been dragging the people around a little like that. So I'm going to kind of dip over and and I'm going to lean over and ask them to disengage that hind end. Now, a lot of times, even at the clinics, I'll say, you're going to dip over and you're going to act like you're going to bite him in the butt. And the reason I want to say that is because with that stick and string extension of their arm or extension of my arm, I'm going to kind of lean over. I'm going to kind of tap at the ground. I'm going to kind of nip at the at the hind quarters and get that horse to turn and face me, because that's going to stop the horse from dragging or pulling. Again, the horse that's really respectful of the space tends to be out of the space, but tends to be thinking about leaving the space, and so you get more of their butt towards you and they're kind of thinking about leaving.
Speaker2:
Now, the other horse that the other temperament that walks in here pretty frequently is the horse that's really comfortable in the person's space. And so the opposite is true. Instead of trying to turn and leave and ending up feeling like that, but being left towards the handler a little bit more, they're kind of coming into your space there. I've seen horses that will kind of stomp coming towards the rider, because that moves that handler out of the way, because the handler is like, ah, that's a big horse stomping towards me. And so those horses end up needing to learn to back out of my space. Now, technically, anything out of my space would be acceptable at first, but if they've got enough control that I can get them to back out of my space, then I'm going to do that. And I typically with a horse that's that bold and confident around people, what I would do is I'm either just going to make my, my, my body language big, which means I can throw my arms up. If you've watched some of my videos, I'll say I do the Funky chicken because I'll flop my elbows out and I'll be like, get out of my space. I make myself physically bigger, but then the more refined cue would be if I if they're if they come in close enough that I can reach them with that stick and string, I'll tap down below the knee on the cannon bone, because they're more likely to kind of jerk that leg backwards or, and or when they back up, they're less likely to rear.
Speaker2:
And so again, this isn't because I'm going there. First of all, it's what the horse is presenting with. So let's back it up even a little bit more. Let's go back to that slightly more wild horse. The cool thing about that slightly more wild horse, we're going to picture this one off from a lunge line. I have to confess, though, I do most of my work on a lunge line. The reason I say that is because I don't have a permanent round pen built here. So anytime I want to do round pen work, I have to get my panels and set them up. And it's really great because then I end up with the round pen set up in the indoor arena, and I have really great footing, but frankly, I'm just too lazy. Or maybe I should say, I'm just so efficient with my work schedule that I don't take the time that I don't take the time to go get it. Really. I love doing some of the stuff at Liberty, but I actually will do a lot of it online, which again, the only complication there is, you've got to get really handy with your tools, but I would encourage you to get really handy with your tools, because when you go to a show or you go to a friend's house or you go to a trail ride, a lunge line is much more portable than a round pen.
Speaker2:
So if you can do this stuff on the line, it leads towards being able to do it off the line. Although if you can do this stuff off the line, then doing it on the line is easier. I'm not going to label it right or wrong, I'm just not taking the time to set up an enclosed area that frequently. So I'm doing more stuff online because I can. So back into the training session. So when this horse is on the line, I want to be able to keep the horse out of my space and, and ask them to turn and face me. So this solves two problems. I no longer feel crowded and I can actually actually have that horse facing me, which is the opposite of turning and dragging and doing the pony drag and dragging me away. Now, if I've got this horse loose in the round pen, or if I watch a couple different horses interacting, they'll use a lot of these same rules, meaning they're going to be like, if get out of my space, a lot of the horses will start with kind of a bigger bubble and they'll be like, this is my space. And then, like I talked about in last week's episode, you're going to be earning the right to be in each other's space.
Speaker2:
And then the turn and face kind of comes from each horse making themselves interesting. And you can see horses make themselves interesting in almost opposite ways, which is really fascinating because we're going to be able to use that. So in my newsletters that I send out, if you sign up for a newsletter, one of the first emails that I send you, I don't know why I call it a newsletter. It's some kind of throwback, but the weekly email that I send out, One of the first ones has a video clip of popcorn in a round pen with two younger horses, Presto and a friend running around. And what's really interesting about it is that if you watch popcorn, looks like he's giving no signals. And those other two younger horses, a yearling and a two year old at the time, they are pushing and biting and slamming into each other. And they're having all of these conversations like this. And realistically, what you're seeing in this short clip is you're seeing the two younger horses doing the who's going to back out of who's space, who's going to turn and face. You don't see very often on that video where one of them has their butt to the other one, unless they're actually kind of aggressively using it. Most of the time they're turning and looking so they can try to see what that competitor is about to do next. So they've kind of got this.
Speaker2:
They're looking with this curiosity and then they're watching that friend come towards them. I say friend loosely here because these two are really evenly matched and they're very physically working it out. My favorite part of the whole video is that popcorn is in the middle and his head is low, and he looks really relaxed, but to me he looks a little bit like an alligator. Like his eyes are like half shut. I can imagine if he was deep in water and he's just sitting there giving these sideways glances because he's just holding his space. So when I watch horses interact, I see that when they have a lot of respect for each other, they have this bigger bubble. But then what typically happens is that that bubble space will get smaller and smaller and smaller. So for some horses you put them out and one just attacks the other. That shrinks the bubble pretty fast. But let's go with a little less aggressive version. So you put horses out together and they get closer and closer and closer to each other. And what starts to happen is wherever those two horses set the boundaries becomes what's allowed. And so if you turn two horses out that they both really like to pick and play, then you'll get a lot of this picking and playing and biting and all these nibbly things. If you've got one horse that's like, no, I don't tolerate any of that.
Speaker2:
The horse that comes to pick is going to run up against a horse that says no. And how that horse says no will depend on that horse's communication style. I tend to split a lot of mine into these ones, tend to bite to get the job done, and these ones tend to kick to get the job done. And I always have an extra red flag on the ones that kick, because the ones that bite might leave marks, but the ones that kick at other horses can do a lot more damage to the other horses. And so it's interesting to watch. But either way, they are going to communicate back out of my space and to some degree when they're in close enough or somebody is being interesting, you're going to see them turn and look. The ones that don't turn and look are communicating something different. Like, yeah, I'm still kind of blowing you off, and you'll see all this language happening out in the pasture or in the round pen. And I want you to think about that when you're working with the horse. So again, the first things I'm going to double check, if somebody hands me a horse in the barn, I want to know, is it can I keep it out of my space. So that's at least four feet out. It's probably more like ten feet out for me. But I'm going to, like, can I get you out of my space? Preferably backing you out, because then you're still facing me and there's less chance of that pony drag.
Speaker2:
So preferably you're facing me and I can back you out of my space. Those tend to be the first two things I work on. Then I want to know, am I able to send that horse to the left or to the right? And it doesn't matter to me if you picture this happening in a round pen or on a lunge line, But I want to know, can I hold my ground and stand in one spot and send that horse to the left and the right? Now, if I'm doing round pinning, I'm going to be moving around and using my body language to do this. And I can do this on the lunge line also. But at some point I want to know that my communication can get more and more subtle. So the big changes that you see in the herd and when you're doing the ground work would be this. A lot of times the body language is big. In the beginning, that's when you put the horses out together and everything gets all stirred up, and there's a lot of big body language. But if you watch a group of horses that's been together for a long time, the body language is much smaller. It's much more toned down because those horses have worked out a lot, and now an ear flick or a sideways step with the hind end means a lot to everybody in the group, because everybody knows where the different lines are.
Speaker2:
They know if that horse takes one step to the left with its haunches. You need to move, and you know other horses can flick an ear and other ones. It doesn't really matter what they do, because nobody actually really is going to move out of their way anyway. So it's very interesting. All these lines get drawn and then everybody follows the lines, but it's typically a lot less stirred up than when you first put the horses out there in the body. Language is big. So when I start working with a horse, I feel like my body language needs to be bigger and more animated. This is why I put it into elementary school. It's a lot more like when you're talking to those younger kids, and you use more expression with your face and bigger body language and bigger facial expressions. That might look a little bit odd if you were in college. Although if you come to my clinics, I still use them, which really cracks people up, but that's a whole nother story. So the reason that we're using this big animated is so we can all be really clear, but it's not my end goal. My end goal is to have it really refined. So I want to move up through high school and up through college. So one of my favorite things to do to people that come here to a clinic is to have them do some groundwork.
Speaker2:
And if they're, you know, if they're above the safety zone and they're and they're in a pretty good range, but maybe they're late elementary school, early high school, they're kind of like floating around in that area. A lot of times what I do to refine them is I put the handler into a hula hoop on the ground, and then have them have to send their horse around and back them out of their space and move them around. Because what this does is it automatically limits how much moving you can do. So I might really do this big dance of moving around when that horse is younger and greener and really help move, but eventually I want to be able to limit that down to a smaller and smaller area so that me taking a half a step back or a half a step forward, and that me raising my arms or lowering my arms, I want to start refining everything. So all this means something. So one of the things I do is I have them stand in a hula hoop, and then can you back the horse out of your space? And then can you send that horse to the left or the right, and how are you going to handle it? If the horse backs up just outside of where you can reach with your stick and string, how are you going to work through that mentally? What tools do you have to use without stepping outside of that? And so these are some of the things that I want you to be thinking about when you're thinking about moving the horse's body, because we we're going to start layering all kinds of more complicated things on top of it as we work from basic leading to potentially doing liberty work on the ground, or basic riding to potentially riding bridleless on their back.
Speaker2:
And so when we start thinking about all these different layers that go into it, this is where I begin. Now you'll notice I mentioned backing the horse out of my space. I mentioned having the horse turn and face. I mentioned being able to send the horse to the left and send the horse to the right, but I didn't talk about the one that we do, probably most often on a daily basis with our horse, which is leading the horse. So on these very early moves, when I'm very first starting with a horse, I'm going to use the word draw a little bit more than leading. So it's interesting, one of the last places I work, so if somebody sends me, I used to take a lot of weanlings in so people would maybe they wouldn't have done any halter breaking, and then when they were weaned, they would send them to me and I would be introducing or for sure teaching the horse to lead lunge, tie.
Speaker2:
And when I say lunge, I just mean like basic go left, go right. Not a lot of hard work at that age, but just the fundamentals of moving around, which makes it a lot easier for the vet and the farrier and everybody who's going to need to handle this horse as it's growing up? But one of the last things I really taught was direct leading pressure. Because when you pull directly straight forward on that horse, it's a lot more likely that that horse is going to sit back and pull directly back. So a lot of this that I teach is by walking off to the side, this this left and right motion. So I'm very rarely in the beginning straight ahead because I don't want to set up that situation of that horse sitting back against me. So to me, when I'm first working with these horses, obviously if they already lead and come, come to me, then they've got some idea of it. But I still don't put a heavy focus on that leading. But for sure, before I tie them, I will. But that ability to work them with that thought that I would be in the round pen, or that thought that I'm in that enclosed area and that I have to be much more aware of my body language, because before you move up to high school and you're standing in a hula hoop, you have a lot of influence over the horse by where you move your body.
Speaker2:
Probably one of the most common groundwork mistakes I see people make is that they they stand very still, and their whole core of their body is very rigid. And they're trying to just send the horse with only their arms. So they might be pulling on the lunge line with the left arm and trying to add pressure with the lunge whip with the or the stick and string with their right arm. But the body, the. Your body has so much power to communicate. Even later on, when I put you into that hula hoop, you still have that ability to make your presence bigger or make your presence smaller or softer, more inviting. And for sure, by the time I'm going to put you into the hula hoop, your horse has got to have some kind of level of focus on you. And that's what those early elementary school moves are for. When I start actually asking the horse to lead, the first thing I do is I use drawing them in and I draw them in a lot of times by stepping away, stepping back, stepping around towards the haunches. And what that does is it allows the horse to follow something that it's kind of curious about. Because I've been making myself curious, I've been making myself interesting. And so I'll walk off around and I'll, I'll let that horse follow me. And so I use a lot of draw versus straight up leading, which is one of the reasons why early on I don't tie the horses until they really understand leading.
Speaker2:
But I might have been doing groundwork with them. You know, with those babies, it's not uncommon for me to do groundwork for, you know, a week before I ever think about actually putting more direct pressure on the halter to mean come forward and I and I won't tie them until I can actually trot off in a straight line and apply pressure. And their first response is to trot off forward. But that's not where I begin. I begin with respecting my space. I begin with turning and facing me, which creates that curiosity and that attention. So they're not just thinking about leaving. And then can I send you to the left? And if you start thinking about leaving, can I get you to turn and face again? And if I send you to the right, same thing, can I send you to the right? And if I send you to the right, are you thinking about crowding me? Do I need to move you back out of my space? And if you think about leaving, can I get you to turn and face? And that, for me, is the dance of the beginning of the communication. And if you've got a really like a, like a wild horse, like popcorn was in the round pen, you can, you can do all of this at Liberty right from the beginning.
Speaker2:
You can do all of this from Liberty. You can back them out of your space by making your body language bigger, and you don't ever have to touch them. And you can get them to turn and face, by the way, that you move your body. And you can send them to the left and the right. And at that point, if they're loose like that, you're going to, you know, it's again, it's all body language. But again, this horse is going to run into at some point they're going to need to make contact and, and accept, you know, brushing and haltering before they could be tied or some of these different things. But in that moment when you go from the liberty work into brushing, what you're going to call up in the horse is they're going to be like, oh, this thing's not as scary as I thought it was. Now where are the boundaries? Which is back to what those two younger horses were asking each other when they are pushing into each other's space when they are biting at each other, when they are running each other over. And so it's not that you've done something wrong. When the horse gets to a stage where it might be asking some of those questions, some of those questions come as the horse gets more comfortable with you. And how big those questions get depends on how you answer those questions early on and where you set your boundaries.
Speaker1:
Supporting companies make this show sustainable. Thank you.
Speaker2:
When I'm recording these podcasts, I often use examples of things that I do with my own horses to illustrate the point that I'm making. In past episodes, and for sure in some of the upcoming episodes, I'm going to be using examples like I lunge presto five times at a trot and ten times at a lope, or other examples like that. Whenever I use these specific examples to illustrate a point, I get questions from listeners asking about exercise tolerance and how much work their horse can do. I'm excited about this week's segment on call with Doctor Monty, sponsored by thrive, because Doctor Monty is going to answer a listener question about increasing exercise tolerance versus overworking your horse. Doctor Monty Mcinturff is located in Tennessee, and he operates the Tennessee Equine Hospital, which has three locations, and he's been an equine practitioner for over 30 years with a focus on the equine athlete. Let's take a listen to my conversation with Doctor Monty.
Speaker3:
Well, thanks for joining me, Doctor Monty. And one of the first things I'd like to ask you about is I get a lot of people that are really hesitant to work their horses very hard. I've got a question here that I think summarizes it really well, but this is also what I run into at clinics where people are. They want to know how to increase the horse's exercise tolerance, but they're really afraid of overdoing it. So are you okay if I read this question to you? Sure.
Speaker4:
That'd be great.
Speaker3:
Okay, awesome. Dear Stacy, the repetition email hit a soft spot for me. I'm one to give breaks often, sometimes excessively, or try to change it up. Very often. However, I realize I need to gain endurance myself. And we just went to a horse show and near the end he was breaking gait. It was most likely due to the deeper sand and being tired, but it also pointed out to me that we need to practice keeping the gait for longer periods of time. My max at home is one lap around the arena, two is pushing it. Where is the line when crossing over, when crossing from over, practicing to keeping the rhythm and keeping the rhythm for over practicing. Sorry, I kind of butchered the end of Casey's question, but this is, this is this is a similar question that I get all the time. It's it's people worrying about injuring the horses as they're trying to increase their exercise tolerance. So are there any tips that you could give us on how to know?
Speaker4:
Yeah, sure. I'd be happy to. I mean, the horse will talk to you while you're while you're exercising with it, for sure. And and the the thing I look for is, is how is the horse breathing and how is the horse sweating? I mean, sweating and breathing are go together. If a horse is sweating properly when he's working, he he it helps him with his respiration. He doesn't have to breathe too deeply. If a horse isn't sweating properly, they tend to heat up. And one of the ways they get rid of heat is through respiration. So I say that to say on general fitness, if I've got a fit horse, I'm going to watch his respiration and I'm going to watch his amount of sweating to kind of know how he's doing. Now, if I've got a horse that's falling off his lead regularly. Or if I've got a horse that's having trouble picking up his lead properly, or he's swapping on and off of his lead, I'm thinking quickly. A lot of times we think of fitness, but the first thing I think of is, is how healthy are his joints? Is he comfortable? Because if a horse is not comfortable in his lower back, or he's not comfortable over his hips, he's not comfortable in his joints, he's going to tend to swap off to get comfortable. So I mean, sometimes we think it's, oh, he's not fit enough. Maybe he's not sound enough.
Speaker3:
Mhm. Okay. So what if if somebody was out there working their horse, at what point would you call the vet or take him in for an exam when you were if you started to see those signs.
Speaker4:
Yeah. So here's the thing is it's kind of like fitness is something you build on slowly. I encourage people to find, you know, three, four, even five days a week to try to exercise their horse. Start with a walk so you can limber up, then begin to trot. And a lot of times when I'm just starting an exercise program, I don't do any canter or lope work until I've done quite a bit of trot work, so that I can tone and strengthen the stifles so he can hold himself properly at the canter. So I would be slow to go into canter work until I knew my horse was fit enough. And I think it takes a horse to really get a bit of tone on their muscles. About a 2 to 3 week period. I don't know how you feel about that before. He has a bit of a tone, so I don't change my work regimens very quickly. Um, I try to do that over a week to ten day period and try to be consistent. And what you'll see is gradual increases in endurance and gradual increases in strength during that period of a week to ten days. If I've got a horse that's showing signs of, hey, I'm struggling with this, I'm going to look, I'm going to look to my veterinarian for evaluating and doing some flexion exams, some palpation exam, you know, making sure my horse is feeling well before I push him on.
Speaker3:
Yeah, that's awesome advice. And and I love it. I, I use personally a two week kind of frame for making changes for my horses, which is kind of interesting that that kind of falls into your, your physical side of it. But I, I notice I try to pick up a section of my training like so if I pick up doing doing something, I'm like, oh, I'm going to kind of hover around this plateau for a couple weeks, and then I'm going to make a transition and see how that goes, because it's easier for me to get feedback if I've got some kind of plateaus built in there, because then I know what I'm measuring against, right?
Speaker4:
Well, yeah. Well my, my, my my training is in reconditioning horses that have been injured. So taking the healthy horse and just putting him into work, that's probably you're more more your expertise. But I take the injured horse, try to figure out what's wrong with them, correct the injury, and then I bring them back through physical therapy so they can get back to where they were. So I think that that that ten day, two week period allows forces to tell you, hey, I'm liking this or I'm not liking this.
Speaker2:
Next week, Doctor Marney and I discuss electrolytes and dealing with the heat. I'd like to thank Echo Thrive again for creating the opportunity to talk to Doctor Marney and for sponsoring this podcast. I explained in last week's episode how Equa thrive joint pellets have helped my horse popcorn. If you'd like to learn more about their products, you can visit thrive.com. And while you're there, let them know that I sent you. Their support helps ensure that this podcast continues. Thanks for listening and I'll talk to you again next week.
Speaker1:
If you enjoy listening to Stacy's podcast, please visit Stacy Westfall. Com for articles, videos and tips to help you and your horse succeed.
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“Think about the language you see happen in the pasture or the round pen when you are working with your horse.” Stacy Westfall Share on X
Links and Resources:
Equine Aural Plaques--with photos. This is what Popcorn has in his ears.
Are ear plaques better left alone?
Equithrive tell them Stacy sent you.
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I like how you are having professionals answer questions regarding equine care. I can totally relate to Casey….one time around the arena…sounds a little like me as well.