As you can see from my profile pic, I could reasonably be expected to have a lot of experience in this area… And I do. And yet, I’m still VERY cautious about the whole affair because while I have experience, I still don’t think I’m very good! I’ve lost track of the times I had to drop the outside line to avoid the wrapped up pony problem!
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I tried the ground driving thing with my young mare. Her reaction to spin on a dime made it not worth it - I just flat out was not fast enough to prevent it, and she got wrapped up a few times before I threw in the towel.
Maybe someone better than me can prevent that sort of thing - I am not the one.
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Thank God someone else said this. I consider myself pretty good at most things, and I just suck at ground driving. It’s not easy. It is also definitely a two person job until the horse is reasonably well trained at it.
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Double lunging can be a useful in-between. If the horse lunges and has learned voice commands, you can work a wider variety of figures and use more of the arena, while introducing the second line in the context of “normal” lunging, so there is less confusion for the horse that could result in turning all the way around. With a reactive horse though there’s always a chance of spinning in that case, which means 2nd line = risky regardless. A horse already educated to lunging is best, and some effort to desensitize to the second line touching the body everywhere (esp back of legs and under the tail) is worthwhile. (DMK, i am sure this is all known to you, just made the most sense to add info in context of your comments)
OP, walking is good for so much, just getting her moving in a relaxed way will probably do a lot for her back. Walking over poles is good for small supporting muscles for the back and stifles. Likewise, anything that increases her range of motion with her hind legs will help stretch and work back muscles.
So glad to see your progress. This kind of work does take some education and time, but it can be enriching to learn and will serve you well with all horses you handle in the future.
I will throw in another vote for qh/qhx. The hip angle, croup shape, narrow base, and small feet seem classic qh to me. I think this info may have been in your other thread.
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And transitions.
Walk to halt. Halt to a walk that is responsive, forward, swinging that comes from behind from an almost step backwards*.
Teaching to halt until told to go forward, ie increasing how long the halt is.
All with voice commands to increase the horses vocabulary.
You can improve in hand obedience, ridability, connection, … So much.
*that’s a down the road goal.
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OP if you’re interested in books, Lessons with Lendon is, imo, a wonderful plan of action/blueprint for starting/restarting a riding horse.
Anyone, of any riding level, in any discipline should have it on their bookshelf
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Ordering! I can always use more books, thanks for the rec. Right now I have a huge STACK, lol. Half the damn horse expenses have been in reading material, I swear.
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Thriftbooks dot com is your friend.
I recommend any Jane Savoie book too.
Does your surcingle have rings on the sides, set lower than the ones on top?
My Hackney Pony can spin like a top & did so when I first ground-drove him.
Until I ran the lines through the rings on his midline.
No more spin&wraplinesaroundtheneck.
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Yes, and that’s where they were. She will gladly literally drag you places when she’s scared, so where the lines were and what bit you use doesn’t matter. She’s 180 in a second or less, and it’s over.
Again, this might be something someone with more skill than me could prevent. After the 3rd time I decided it wasn’t worth the risk of continuing. A true wreck was inevitable.
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If you don’t think a horse can wrap themselves with two lines regardless of position in and out of rings, you just haven’t lived yet. Sure it’s harder on the side rings, but not that much harder!
@strangewings, all good ideas, but I would add the back legs and under the tail (especially that one) desensitization is still probably not a newb move (but there’s a lot more people capable of helping with that vs competency in ground driving!)
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Oh, I learned real quick, see remodeled knuckles on 2nd & 3rd fingers. Acquired when pony spun so fast I couldn’t let go of the outside line fast enough 
If line hadn’t released, I might have lost a fingertip or two 
But at least the lower position gives you a fighting chance to use horse’s body as leverage against the spin.
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100% do not ground drive or double lunge without someone who knows what they are doing teaching the horse and you. I also agree that ground driving is a 2 person job in the beginning. Double lunging can be done by one person that knows what they are doing, but they can still try to spin in those too. I had to learn the hard way—with a difficult horse situation like you’ve got only make the horse very big and young! I am thankful for the people who took the time to help me. I’ve started some others double lunging as well since that time and other than the one horse who liked to try to double barrel at your face and would sometimes get a leg over a line, not too many scary incidents for me even with a lot of horse yahoos, once I had a good feel for it.
But step one is being able to do it in a confined area like an arena or round pen in case you have to let go or you get fumbling dealing with so much stuff in your hands. Step one million is something like ground driving out on trails. I don’t think your horse is ready for step one yet, even with an experienced person.
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Thank you for keeping us updated. I haven’t posted because you’ve gotten lots of good advice, but I’ve been following your journey. Well done on working through these issues with your horse (and barn staff!). I hope you continue your progress and I have no doubt you will. You seem like a very conscientious horse owner. Ginger is lucky to have you!
As an aside, I feel you on not being able to whistle. I want to teach my horse to come when I whistle so badly, but no matter how hard I try I can’t whistle! Guess I’ll have to accept my limitations and teach her to come using another verbal command.
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I agree. Your responses have been polite and appreciative even to those whose comments have been a bit rude or based upon somewhat insulting assumptions. Paired with the willingness to stand up to the know-it-alls for your horse if really necessary, this attitude will continue to stand you in good stead with horses and true horse people.
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This is so nice, thank you so much. It feels good to know people are rooting for us because honestly there are moments where it feels pretty bleak. I didn’t picture this as my first horse experience in a million years and as I’ve said before I basically went down the checklist and did every thing this giant pool of books I read beforehand and forum threads etc said to do to avoid this situation… but these are the cards I have unintentionally dealt myself and ultimately I do think she’s a very sweet horsie, and that there are a lot of things that you can’t train into or out of a horse that I lucked out on with her - conformation (for my budget at least), natural movement, disposition, lack of mareishness, bravery, curiosity, etc. Three months having gone by I know how she reacts when she spooks and it’s mild and on the scale I’ve ridden through before on other horses, and that’s if she even spooks at all - despite being in a near constant state of tension she doesn’t really have many moments of acute fear and is tolerant of a lot of things the horses I’m used to riding simply aren’t.
I was correct in my assessment that she’s interested in people and sociable as opposed to aloof and not a ‘people horse’, which was and is really important to me, even if she doesn’t show affection in the ways I’m used to. For fun, here’s a pic of her on the day I first saw her/put down a deposit - one of the things that caught my eye was that even after she was returned to her stall she was very interested in us instead of spinning around and tuning out, watching us with ears pricked (in a non-nervous way) and putting her snout through the ‘pat hole’ in her stall.
And ultimately - I keep reminding myself that I’m so, so lucky just to have a horse at all. Even if I’m not riding her right now I’m still spending every day with a horse that is completely and 100% my own, and child me would be over the moon knowing that her dream finally came true even a little tiny bit.
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Holy #$%&!!! Yeah, I had no idea about ground driving being this dangerous but looking at the above replies I think that’s gonna be a hard pass for me.
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I have in the past three months become their best customer! I’ve always LOVED that site but especially now it’s been really useful. I find the horse market in particular has great availability of things secondhand where you just don’t see that so much in some other hobbies. I got the OG centered riding book which is like at least 20$ on thriftbooks for $2 at Breyerfest in someone’s room at the Clarion!
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You guys are too nice, thank you ;-; I’m very lucky to be in a position where I can afford to do a lot of these things like vet tests and getting the books I need to learn this stuff, it must be said. And I’ve had a lot of great insight and help here too.
Yeah, I can pseudo-whistle and make a high pitched sound with air but it’s not a true whistle and certainly not audible from a distance. I think she’s more responsive to verbal commands in general though because you can convey a lot through pitch and tone of voice to make it sound exciting and fun to come to you. That and I pair it with a hand gesture of curling my fingers in for both ‘forward’ and ‘come’, which I like to think accelerates the process a little for an animal that rooted in body language.
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Also, not a true update but the evening-of: Vet comes out tomorrow and draws blood/examines her back to maybe see what’s going on. If there’s a chiro adjustment she recommends we will probably do that. Hoping to get some answers, or at least to rule some stuff out, if they don’t cancel on me (her floating has been cancelled on me the morning of twice now ).
‘Zephyr lead’ for TEAM training came today, and I worked on desensitizing her to fullbody touch with the ‘wand’ (dressage whip I only use for prompting her with these cues), which she was pretty good about. Did some more poles; she was balky on the way to the arena but once we were like 10ft from the door she entered willingly and without hesitating.
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