Welcome to Gerbitz Quarter Horses website & Barb Gerbitz’s news page.

In the interest of motivating, educating and inspiring my students, friends and interested visitors in 2010.

I would like to welcome you to the July/August  journal entry, on “What goes on in the horsemanship training barn.”  These journal entries will allow you to ride along with me and the horses that come thru the horsemanship training barn.  Articles are often inspired by the things I experience with the horses & people from month to month.

Horses are delightfully honest, which makes our job easier as long as we are willing to put forth the effort an individual horse requires to teach them what it is we want them to learn.  The groundwork is a tool that can help to clarify to the horse what it is we are after.  Applied correctly groundwork can facilitate and expediate communication between the horse and handler.  Applied incorrectly can cause the horse to learn things about the handler that would have been better left unknown.  Specifically, who is actually the leader.  Correct or incorrect placement of the feet, shaping of the body and reading of the horse are the three things that can make things much easier or more difficult for a horse and handler.

Is the horse light in hand, correct in every foot placement, shaped correctly thru the head, neck & body and have a calm and willing attitude? Or is the horse leaning on the halter, pushing thru the feel, forwards, sideways or backward, bringing the feet off the ground in deffensive and assertive postures, moving their feet into overdrive, moving the feet sluggishly or not moving at all?  And/or perhaps using their, cranky facial expressions, teeth, head, neck, shoulders, hips or feet to move the handler around? 

Each of these things are considered when assessing whether or not the groundwork has really made a difference to the horse physically and more importantly, mentally.  If the horse is not responding appropriately with the feet, the body and the mind are probably not responding appropriately either.  Which can make the riding of less quality for two reasons.  First the horse is willing but not clear about how to place the feet and shape their body for example; simply shaping the head and neck for lateral bending while moving forward, as in, a cirle or serpentine.  And second unwillingness to place the feet and shape due to the existence of the braces in the feet, in the pursuit of trying to maintain control of their feet due to dominance or fear. Either scenario may leave the horse to believe they still have the responsibility of being the leader.  This may not seem like such a big deal until you ask your horse to do some simple tasks and the horse appears to completely reject the idea.  Some examples of simple tasks might be to make upward or downward transitions, back-up, move the shoulders or hindquarters laterally; slowly or quickly, open and close a gate, ride a small circle or disengage the hindquarters to a stop, to regain control of say a scared or broncy horse. 

 It is important to the horse that we are able to communicate to all of their body parts.  The head, neck, back and ribs should be as supple as possible and easy to shape laterally and longitudinally while standing still moving forwards, backwards, left, right up or down.  The front and hind feet and each individual foot on the front or hind should be available to move independently of each other, with the riders leg aids, going forwards, backwards, left or right, up or down. 

 It may seem like a big task until you break the body down into individual parts and work on one area at a time from the ground.  A position that you can see what your horse is doing and offer the horse the chance to do the exercise without the weight of the rider or the feel of a bit. ”A Matter of Mutual Respect” offers a check list of things to work on in the pursuit of gaining control of the horses feet to get the physical and mental change.  There is no place for drilling the horse on any task. A brief check of the basics including driving, rolling the hind end over, moving the front end thru, backing and trotting and any task or obstacle on the list should give a person who can asses proper foot placement and read a horse, all the information they need to proceed on to more extensive exercises as needed.

Here’s the thing.  A person can achieve any one of the exercises on a mediocre scale and still not have the horses mentally on board (respect).  Being able to get the feet and body to maneuver and shape accurately.  Having the ability to  read and feel of the individual horse and determine where they are at mentally is important.  If the horse is in overdrive, has no drive,  is tight, bothered, aggressive or timid, shows the slightest of hesitations or is heavy in hand at anytime during any exercise, maneuver or obstacle you can almost safely assume that the horse is not mentally on board with the person they are working with due to lack of knowledge or lack of respect for their lead horse skills, which would give you the clues you need to proceed further to get the horse better about moving the feet and shaping thru the body correctly.  If the horse has never been put in a position to push their limits further than they are currently accustomed, the person may be missing out on or avoiding the opportunity’s required to get into that horse mind. 

If any of the tasks on the Matter of Mutual Respect list are difficult or not something that a person and their horse can do yet, there lies an excellent opportunity!  To observe the feet and body and to figure out which foot or feet and body parts need to learn to yield appropriately. And address those areas better so that they can really get with that horse physically and mentally.  A person might even find that the same horse starts to work better in other areas because of the work they did on a problem area.

And then we must ride! Braces will present themselves from the horses back which is normal, but now we may have some skills in place from doing effective groundwork that we can use to communicate to the horse from their backs.  Every horse is different, some are tougher than others to get things smoothed out.  But by now, we might have an idea of what to expect and how much we’ll have to do when we are riding… 

If the horse is soft, light, handy, relaxed and willing to go to work with a good expression and no apprehension you can almost safely assume the horse is mentally on board, at least for that moment.  Afterall even the most gentle and refined horse will ask, “Are your sure?”, once in a while.  For the student of the horse, maintaining the physical and mental connection for increasingly longer periods of time is the challange and the fun of horsemanship.

A Matter of Mutual Respect: Does My Horse Meet Basic Ground Skill Requirements?

Create a solid foundation for better communication in the saddle.   

 Before Mounting Up My Horse Can…