Taking liberties

[glenatron]

Over the last few years I have tended to feel that working at liberty and the whole "bareback and halter" riding thing is a bit pretentious, a bit circus and not a whole lot to do with real, practical horsemanship. My views on that haven't really changed but when you only have a few minutes it can be pretty handy to just chuck a halter on your

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[joycemocha]

Spring fever! Mocha is Miss Airhead right now, though Cowhorse Brain returns if I insist.

I like doing liberty work as part of my regular schooling. These days (especially in Western), I'll ask Mocha to walk to the arena without touching rein or bit. Then I'll have her turn at liberty and wait for me while I close the gate. But to build up to it, I spent a lot of time last winter doing liberty practice where she cooled off walking next to me, following me around turns, both toward her and away from her (and I had done similar work in earlier winters. Winter time is when we spend a lot of nights walking around cooling off, especially in Western tack. Maintenance, if you keep a horse stalled with a blanket. Can't put them away wet). I think G uses her for the ground part of his college classes, as well.

Gotta say, it does impress people when she walks quietly into her stall, turns and faces the front, and waits for me to remove the halter. Of course, she always gets a treat after so I know that's what really motivates her...and I've been training that into her for over five years.

I just incorporated liberty work into cooling her out, and working with her when she was lame. But she's had round pen training, and I'll occasionally do a refresher with her, maybe once or twice a year, just to remind her that I can turn her and make her do what I want. If she gets pushy, it's time for me to do a five minute round pen session and remind her who's really the boss. Quick and dirty. But then, I figure the most time you should spend on things like liberty foundations and round pen foundations are when you first introduce the concept, and afterward you only revisit it as needed. It is a convenient tool to use. But hey, the pen doesn't really need to be round, either. I've had some of my more intense "come-to-Mama" sessions in the little square paddocks outside, when Mocha was being a pill in outside work and I needed to step down and get after her to remind her who's in charge. Amazing the change in attitude a few quick hard rollbacks elicit.

The other piece of liberty work is that it's just plain convenient to be able to tell the horse "whoa" wherever you are, walk away and do something on the ground, then come back without having to worry about the horse taking off. Or be able to walk alongside the horse without holding a rein (especially true when you're using a romal).

[glenatron]

Do you driving type work as well? One thing that I find quite interesting to work on is effectively long lining without the lines, but otherwise using the same approach to get changes of direction but doing it in a way that keeps pushing along rather than the slightly easier option of hooking the horse onto you and having them come to you.

Zorro and I can do it alright for a while but then it tends to go off the rails a little...

[joycemocha]

I do use long lines as well. Haven't tried them as a liberty technique as often I'm either conditioning her during an injury (G likes long line work as he says you can do just about anything with long lines that you can under saddle), or schooling (better for jumping work for her, especially when introducing something new. She likes to investigate new types of jumps with an extremely low head...a bit nervous-making to ride. But it also allows her to find her rhythm without the distraction of a rider).

It's also excellent for desensitizing horses to ropes and things around their legs. G likes to use it with green horses for that reason as well as teaching steering without a rider. Always good to get the horse accustomed to an inadvertent rope under the tail.

With Mocha, I'll often ground drive her in a sidepull. It's interesting to see how quickly she reads my body language to know that we're turning. More obvious than a lunge.

[glenatron]

What I find really interesting is the way you can get the same changes of direction at liberty as you get with lines by doing much the same thing - you sort of push on the hip and if changing direction combine that with a change of eye.

[joycemocha]

Actual push on the hip or push in the air toward the hip? Are you working close in like the Spanish Riding School does or further away?

Both my trainer and I work several feet behind and to the side. It's how we were taught to ground drive as young children, and I wonder if that's because we were raised by parents who grew up handling work horses. The Spanish Riding School close-in method always makes me nervous to watch. And then I saw Jean-Claude Racinet work a horse in hand where he was right up next to the horse's body, about where a rider would be, and up close as well.

[glenatron]

Sort of push towards the hip - I longline a few feet behind the horse so I'm in the same position, maybe six feet behind, get in time with the hind feet and "pushing" the hip is the best way I can think of to describe it, but you don't get any closer, you just put a little intention in.

[joycemocha]

Interesting. It'd take a bit more prep to get Miss Mocha dialed in as she'd be looking for more guidance, and I'd probably want to start in the round pen until she got the idea, then move to a bigger square pen. OTOH, she'd probably interpret it as more along the lines of more round pen-type work.

I am, however, going to begin to desensitize her to brooms and ball since I'm contemplating teaching her how to play broom polo this summer. I think I could get some college students into the concept. Could be fun!