Tricks, Ground Training And Performance By (C) by Suzanne De Laurentis, 2005
It is becoming more evident all the time that folks love teaching their horses tricks. Our requests at Imagine A Horse for both instruction and training have increased dramatically in the last year. Guests call almost everyday and ask to come and visit our trick horses. Requests for performances at charitable events and general entertainment are also on the rise.
We have had hundreds of letter and calls from horse enthusiasts who enjoy the resulting knowledge their horses gain with Trick Training but who also just love the process.
The word trick can be a verb, an adjective or a noun. When describing our exhibition horses we have often thought they should be called tricky horses rather than trick horses. Roget?s New Thesaurus says that tricky means requiring great tact or skill.
A fun and relatively simple way to integrate Trick Training and ground work is to include pedestal training in basic round pen work.
Over the years I have used most every variation of round pen training in starting young horses and preparing them for under saddle work. I recently developed a round pen program that combines in-hand ground training and beginning pedestal work which yields fast and sometimes astonishing results. The method has proven to improve coordination, confidence, flexibility and obedience in a horse. The combined work also adds new meaning, other than ?because I asked you to? for the horse such as yielding the hindquarters. I am referring to outside horses sent for training and not young horses that we raised with Enhanced Foal Training techniques. These beginning ground work and pedestal exercises can be the foundation in creating a Trick Horse, a performance or a companion horse.
If you and your equine partner have developed some basic round pen skills, you both may benefit from adding a few props such as pedestals to your exercises.
After training with basic ground poles, cavaletti, and small jumps, I teach my equine students to step up on a pedestal with just the front feet. The step up with all 4 feet takes a bit more practice so I start with just the two front feet up.
After my equine student can reliably step up, I begin to combine the pedestal work and the ground work. I like to work a horse on a 15 foot working line (short longe line) and have him circle me at a trot as I slowly walk my way around the perimeter of the round pen. I do this until my horse is proficient at circling without tugging on the line. I also want him to whoa and and step back on command.
I usually place 4 pedestals of various sizes in the round pen at more or less even intervals close to the perimeter, but with enough space for the horse to pass between the pedestals. I then begin to use the pedestals as the core of each circle I ask the horse to make as we progress around the pen. After the horse has settled into the circles at a trot I will vary my body position slightly and head him toward a pedestal. The horse usually sees the pedestal as a great alternative to keeping his feet moving, and will step up without much pressure. If he chooses not to step up, I just go on with my circling and next time we come to the same pedestal I again place the pedestal in the path of the horse?s movement and ask him to step up. If he steps up, we take a breather and he gets lots of praise and stroking. At this point the light of understanding usually comes on for the horse. Over the next few days, I will vary the exercise so that sometimes the horse is allowed to step up and take a breather and sometimes he is asked to continue on with the circling. I circle in both directions and work to make my horse?s approach as exact as possible.
To date, I have not had one single horse try to evade the pedestal. The choice is very clear, step up, or keep on trotting! As time goes on I add more steps to the basic exercise. One of the pedestals is a small square shape and I use it to teach the horse to yield the hindquarters. With the horse?s front feet on the pedestal, I stand at his head to discourage his stepping off. I then cue him on the side and ask that he step over, or pivot his hind quarters with his back feet. Depending on the understanding and coordination of each horse, I may ask for just a couple of steps with the back feet or for a half a turn around the pedestal. I also to teach the horse to step up with his back feet and then work this exercise into the circling exercise.
Ground work exercises transfer very easily to under saddle skills. As young equine students learn to carry and balance my weight I begin to add in the pedestal exercises.
The horses I have worked with seemed to universally enjoy standing on the pedestal with their front feet while back feet remain on the ground. They have seemed to enjoy the associated stretching and also viewing their surroundings from an elevated position. In fact it is often rather difficult to get them to step down!
Trick Training can be used to shape an unwanted behavior into desired behavior. When Twister, a young Chincoteague Pony, came to the ranch for ground training, he was so mouthy that he became extremely annoying in short order. After working with him several days, and all of my attempts did not curb the behavior, I decided to teach him to smile. After he had learned to offer a big smile, he was very proud of himself. He soon began to offer a smile at most times when a nip would have made him happier earlier. He would walk next to me in-hand with his little lips curled in a big smile. Eventually, when the newness wore off a bit, he gave up nipping and smiling continuously and seemed happy to smile for his horse cookies or petting.
Horses with extra personality love to interact with people. Trick trained horses often use learned behavior to interact with their handler. Turbo, a young Tennessee Walker that we have in for trick training, stands on the pedestal in his corral and salutes continually when he wants me to come and play with him. Allen?s horses all have pedestals in their stalls. It is a lot of fun to walk into the barn each morning and be greeted by horses standing on their pedestals with their lips curled up in a smile. Offering learned behavior as a means of interacting makes a horse think he has his handler pretty well trained! For instructions and information about the March Trick Horse Training camp visit www.imagineahorse.com
