Tips on taking horses back to basics

horseluver4eva

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Ive decided i am going to take my horse completely!! Back to basics. Ive got my own plan on what to do with him and he needs a lot of walk to halt transitions and learning to go off the leg better, and also how to react calmly without lashing out. I was just wondering if anybody has had any previous experiences or tips to help with the process? Thanks
 
I took my ex racer completely back to basics when I bought her. She was a very reactive horse and I found that doing a lot of natural horsemanship style groundwork exercises, also involving bombproofing really really helped her to be less reactive and stop and think about situations she is uncomfortable in rather than just reacting. As an example she used to panic with big vehicles. After the ground work etc.. She now will just stop, look, think and accept vehicles rather than panic reacting. She had been doing really well but has had a few confidence knocks recently and has also gone barefoot recently so I'm taking the opportunity to go back to basics again and have found that long lining is being great and is really helping her confidence and reducing her reactivness.
 
Well she is a quick learner so I probably started to see real progress and change in her attitude after a month or two :)
 
I have brought my horse back to basics and I have found lunging to be marvelous. He is very tense and working on the lunge has taught him not to be afraid to stretch and use his back properly. I started getting regular lessons from a dressage instructor too and the one thing she keeps stopping me from doing is compromising and meeting him half way and basically accepting sub standard work. She has made me be very clear and consistent with my aids.
 
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