13 Fun Groundwork Games and Training Exercises You Can Do With Your Horse
Groundwork is important, and can be fun! Whether you don’t ride your horse for personal reasons, your horse’s helath/age, your health/age or even if you do ride your horse, groundwork is an awesome way to build up a bond, strengthen your training foundations, and to get your horse some needed exercise! It’s often argued (and supported) that groundwork is essential to any horse’s training. Aside from its importance for training, there are some fun things you can do with your horse on the ground as well. These aren’t all the possibilities you can try, but just a few! Get creative and start your own games/exercises too!
Horse Agility- This sport requires lots of training, desensitization, and trust! It can be really rewarding and physically beneficial to you and your horse. Agility involves going up and down ramps, jumping through small hoops, navigating tight spaces, running under tarp, and more!
Go For a Walk/Jog- This can be around your property, in the woods, down a quiet road, wherever! It’s a great way to get exercise for the both of you. This should be done on a regular basis along with lunging to keep your non-riding horse fit.
Lead You Horse Over Jumps on a Leadline- Get creative with it! Just make sure you never strain your horse and always keep the jumps low and easy to manage.
Do Some Cavaletti or Ground Pole Work- this ground work is great for building muscles and helping your horse with balance!
Try To Put Ground Poles Together in a Narrow Path and Lead Your Horse Through- this is just a fun challenge to see how tight you can make the obstacle, and helps to test how well your horse is in sync with you.
Try Free Lunging in a Round Pen- free lunging is a great way to work on your horsemanship. You can do many different trust and training exercises in a free lunging setting!
Work on Basic Lateral Work- Teach your horse how to turn on the haunches/forehand, sidepass, etc all from the ground! This helps your horse to be more sensitive to you and use their mental skills.
Take Your Horse Swimming/Desensitize Them to Water- if introduced properly and gradually, many horses will grow to enjoy swimming or going into water. It’s so fun to watch them splash and play in it as well!
Regularly Introduce Your Horse to Unfamiliar Objects- this is a great way to desensitize your horse and to let them use problem solving and mental skills. Try having them walk over tarp, across a bridge, through and arch with ribbons hanging down, let your imagination take over!
Teach Your Horse Voice Commands- teach your horse in a round pen to walk, trot, canter, halt, and change directions in a round pen using voice commands. You can also teach them other fun tricks, even coming to you when their name is called!
Target/Clicker Train Your Horse- Target training your horse can open a world of training and play possibilities. Horses respond well to this kind of training, so it can go as far in their exercise regime as you’re willing to work for.
Play Tag With Your Horse- Always make sure you stay safe and are knowledgeable on different types of body language before trying, but a lot of horses really enjoy playing “tag” or follow the leader with their owners. This is a really fun game to play, especially in the pasture or round pen!
Have Your Horse Experience Different Situations- Have them jump off a small bank into water. Practice loading and unloading into the trailer. Have them walk through unusual narrow spaces. Just do something different, expose them to something unusual for them to think about and try to figure out. Introduce things gradually and let your horse experience something new.
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