Groundwork and ground manners - english and western

[endlessclimb]

It has been discussed here before, but I’d like to try and understand better the root of the differences between the attitudes on ground manners in the English vs the Western world. I am aware that these will be generalizations, and that there are exceptions to every rule.

To my understanding:

The english world places less of a focus on ground manners such as: biting, crowding your space, standing for mounting/at the mounting block, prompt transitions on the lunge, tying, girthiness, leading nicely, etc. They treat many behaviors as pieces of a horse’s personality, and seem to indicate they may enhance performance. If the horse rides well, the ground manners are secondary.

The western world places more emphasis on the horse being quiet to handle on the ground. Even the top performers are not allowed to engage in “bad” behavior on the ground, and nearly if not all are taught to tie.

I am aware this post may ruffle some feathers by the way it’s worded, and I do not intend on doing that. I’m looking for honest feedback from both ‘sides’ in regards to their methodology and why they do it that way.

[AnastasiaBeaverhousen]

IMHO, I believe it has a lot to do with the history and culture of each discipline…
Most English riders had money and grooms. The grooms had to deal with ill-mannered horses.
Europeans brought their customs with their horses.

The western style of riding came from cowboys who used their horses to work cattle.
I can see why they insisted on manners and obedience because if you are working the back forty in BF Egypt and your horse decides to go home whether you want to or not, well its a long way back…

Cowboys were responsible for grooming and tacking up their own mounts and taking care of them after the day was over.
They sometimes had to be their own farrier and vet.

So I can totally see why western trainers insist on ground manners.

I am a dressage rider, but I don’t tolerate bad manners.
I don’t think its funny or cute when a horse won’t stand still for the vet or farrier or gives the barn workers grief.
At best, its merely annoying, at worst its dangerous. Either way it is not acceptable.

I have trained my horse to stand and wait for me if I walk away. i don’t ground tie him because I don’t have two separate reins and I don’t want him to step into them.

I also have taught my horse to lead from both sides, and to be mounted from both sides.

I also taught him to stand still so I could open and close gates while mounted. It came in very handy many times.

[Wanderosa]

There’s also some difference in temperament between the breeds most commonly used in English versus Western disciplines. I certainly don’t tolerate any aggressive behavior from my horses. But when my clipped, super-sensitive, thin-skinned TB looks grouchy about his girth? I’m going to give him leeway unless he tries to kick or bite.

[Altag]

Maybe partly to do with the most frequent temperaments in the most common breeds in each? Drafts, Quarter Horses, Appaloosas in western versus Thoroughbred, Arabs, and other hot breeds for English?

In other words, maybe people who ride English pick their battles and focus on under-saddle manners rather than ground manners?

[Altag]

Wanderosa, I was typing when you posted. LOL

[mswillie]

@endlessclimb

To my understanding:

The english world places less of a focus on ground manners such as: biting, crowding your space, standing for mounting/at the mounting block, prompt transitions on the lunge, tying, girthiness, leading nicely, etc. They treat many behaviors as pieces of a horse’s personality, and seem to indicate they may enhance performance. If the horse rides well, the ground manners are secondary.

The western world places more emphasis on the horse being quiet to handle on the ground. Even the top performers are not allowed to engage in “bad” behavior on the ground, and nearly if not all are taught to tie.

I am aware this post may ruffle some feathers by the way it’s worded, and I do not intend on doing that. I’m looking for honest feedback from both ‘sides’ in regards to their methodology and why they do it that way.

Not my understanding at all. My horse damn well better not display bad manners on the ground or we are going to have a serious discussion. When I got my horse he had a bad habit of crowding me through gates, not anymore. He walked behind me on the lead (I hate that), took forever to get him out of that habit. He doesn’t run into his stall, keeps his foot up until I put it down etc. If he “forgets” something I spend a couple minutes to re-establish the correct behavior. It usually only takes a couple repetitions. FTR he was a “western” horse before I got him.

I ride English. I find people putting up with ill-mannered horses more a function of rider/owner personality than that of their chosen discipline.

[clanter]

@Altag

Maybe partly to do with the most frequent temperaments in the most common breeds in each? Drafts, Quarter Horses, Appaloosas in western versus Thoroughbred, Arabs, and other hot breeds for English?

if the horse is unruly a trip to France in a box was all that was needed

Acceptance of bad behavior is not acceptable

[Scribbler]

Well I see a lot of young riders coming out of English riding lesson programs with riding skills far in advance of their ground work skills. Maybe they learned to ride on horses that were OK on the ground.

And at one extreme, race track people don’t care at all.

Western work involves taking a horse out into the wide open world and having him behave OK. Trail or open range riding, stand tied at the trailer or hitching rail, mount from a log, stand quiet, even ground tie. You can’t get out and about if your horse is a menace that way.

​​​I sometimes trailer in to a horse park that has a cross country field, a really nice 2 or 3 hour trail loop, and a resident dude string working out of a stock truck in summer.

You get to see the full gamut and indeed the eventers are more likely to be whizzed up than the western horses.

But obviously people do trail ride a lot on Arabians (huge in endurance) and they all learn to behave. As do OTTB, STB, WB, if they are taught to.

I feel like repeatedly leaving my mare tethered to the trailer (while I ate my picnic lunch) in the presence of the dude string was really useful! Horses pick up the herd feeling.

[fjordmom]

Bad behavior is just not acceptable in my book, regardless of breed, discipline, age, or what ever else.

I’m strictly an English rider but have handled everything from OTTBs to Arabs, to Morgans, to QHs, draft ponies, and a lot in between. A horse may not have come into my barn with stellar manners, but they have all left with good behavior (and all those that have never left are regularly complemented for their good manners and ease of handling).

Horses are too big and potentially dangerous to not receive the training it takes to create solid citizens. Ground manners carry over into under saddle behavior and also provide a horse with better assurance that they won’t end up in a bad end of life situation after being passed around due to being a rouge or otherwise unruly.

Almost all of the unruly horses I’ve encountered seem to be a reflection of their owner/handler — laissez faire owner = horse that is unsure of what is expected of them or often regularly tests the boundaries; consistent and fair handler = horse that knows the expectations (and consequences) every time and behaves accordingly well. This has not been English vs. western or breed specific. I’ve also noticed that the children of laissez faire owners and/or the dogs they have are usually the ones that are a PITA as well.

Even my DD at a young age understood the benefit of good ground manners. When, on occasion, her pony would get a bit too pushy, she’d say it was time for him to have his “patience lessons” and practice some groundwork with him. Worked every time.

[Altag]

@clanter

if the horse is unruly a trip to France in a box was all that was needed

Acceptance of bad behavior is not acceptable

Never said it was Clanter. I’m not excusing poor ground manners in any way. But personally, I’d definitely start with training before shipping a horse off to slaughter. :rolleyes:

Some horses, particularly in certain breeds, are practically born with decent ground manners due to their innate lack of spookiness, while others have a much higher level of reactivity and therefore take much more training/time/maturity to learn to settle down and behave properly. I’m not saying that owners of hotter horses get a free pass to NOT do such training, only that the horse will need to learn those skills whereas in another horse, those skills are pre-installed and much less effort on the part of the owner is required.

It’s all a matter of dealing with the horse in front of you, and recognizing that they are not all starting from the same point in terms of temperament, reactivity, and sensitivity. If the only horses that one (anyone/general you) has had experience with have all been born with low-reactivity and tend to be calm, breeds that are more sensitive may come across as untrained when it MAY be a case of immaturity, lack of exposure/bomb-proofing, and a longer, slower process of actually getting to fully trained mode for that particular horse.

Sure, it could well be a lack of effort on the owner’s part, but, I’m not going to lump English riders into any camp that simply accepts bad ground manners based on the fact that they ride English instead of western.

It’s the finger-pointing that I’m not on board with – regardless of my own horse’s temperament (very sensible and laid-back) and ground manners (excellent), I do recognize that NOT every other horse was born with the same level of sensitivity and not every other horse needs the same amount of time/training/maturity to reach a respectable level of good ground manners.

[Foxtrot_s]

As an English rider, we were never exposed to the ground work that I learned when I had the chance to see how the western horse as trained … none of the books or training manuals talked about the finesse of a well trained horse,
even the instructors’ manuals.

[AppaloosaDressage]

We have mostly dressage horses and a few western pleasure / trail horses, 2 year olds to coming 18 year old… range from not yet started undersaddle to beginner safe pony to GP dressage. None are allowed naughtiness or silliness, even (especially) the babies. Some of them took more work to get that message across (the young warmbloods and rescue horses who didn’t know any better at first, for instance) but it’s simply not allowed. If allowed it escalates quickly. For a solid future and progress in training undersaddle, the ground manners come first and are expected throughout the day, every day.

[MGLpony]

I also wonder how the predominate owner demographic, female, combines with the need for bigger and hotter horses to result in poor ground manners. A personal experience from a friend who wanted big and “sensitive”…she bought a 15.3 big-bodied gelding for a fair sum of money who now sits in a paddock because she is afraid of him. Wants to be all lovey-dovey and in his space with the result of him running over her, bolting off, striking. Of course, she laments not purchasing the 17hh+. Sigh.

[Highflyer]

IME Western riders tend to be much quicker to send a horse down the road if it doesn’t seem to be working out then English riders. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. OTOH I can find ten nice well-behaved trail horses for under $1k for every one legit Prelim event horse prospect. And my $1 Prelim horse that didn’t tie to the trailer wasn’t a huge deal to manage even competing by myself. But if he’d broken his neck panicking because I tied him he wouldn’t have been replaceable. My current horse is pretty bad. I am the only one who handles him and I’m very aware of it, if he had to be boarded I would euthanize him. (Of course he will stand tied to the trailer all day and can be mounted from a variety of surfaces and opens gates and even does trail classes, successfully but God forbid you come within ten feet of him while he’s eating.)

[Equibrit]

Bad training is available and apparent in Western and English circles.

[Scribbler]

Nevertheless, if you want to find a trainer or clinician to work on bomb proofing, tying, leading, etc., they will pretty much all be coming out of a western background and perhaps a colt starting background too.

There are lots of good English trainers who can put manners on their young horses just through daily handling. But they don’t necessarily go out of their way to teach these skills specifically to students who are paying for riding lessons. And the arena lesson environment with cross ties and mounting blocks and arena walls is more controlled than the wild blue yonder of a back country trail head.

[EventingMaff]

I think it’s less that English riders don’t focus on ground manners vs western riders (even though statistically you are probably right). Yes there are lots of examples of western riders with horses with bad ground manners and english riders with horses with good ground manners - but if you look at training progression and philosophies, English disciplines do not typically touch on ground work for manners and those techniques will typically come from Western backgrounds.

I think previous posters have touched on the sources of this already. In English disciplines, historically people pleasure rode and then the horse was handed off to a groomsman and put away. Typically in English riding we ride for 1-2 hours a day max, maybe do some grooming, and then horse is turned out or stalled.

Working horses out west to this day are often out working all day. It’s not uncommon that horse and rider are in each other’s presence for extended periods - being tied, having to stand still to get tacked up even if there is no where to tie them, having to pony, having to continue in a straight line under saddle even if rider is eating (or reading! done that…). If the rider is trying to get something else seen to, having a horse bolsh over them or start wandering off is inefficientand counter productive. So all these basics are part of the horse’s basic training as skills they need in life.

If you think of an English rider - these are ‘nice to haves’ but not really imperative to the job.

Of course there are English riders that expect and instill these skills becaues it’s important to them specifically - but within the working western world these skills are actually fundamental and critical.

I think if you compare performance Western riders who’s interactions with horses follow a similar dynamic to English riders (1-2 hr ride, put away) then you’ll probably find similar rates of bad ground manners.

[Foxtail]

Just because I ride in an English saddle doesn’t mean I tolerate bad behavior. I just don’t make an ordeal out of correcting it. Not unless my immediate physical safety is being threatened.

So yeah, if you’re used to deliberately schooling ground manners on a horse that isn’t young or isn’t rank, I can completely understand why my take on instilling ground manners would seem lacking to the outside observer from a western background. I just don’t see why it’s necessary to blow up in a horse’s face for something that could be corrected with a few bops on the nose or a little creative thinking. I’d rather make the horse punish himself.

The American western riding tradition doesn’t just have its roots in using the horse for work. Everyone forgets that western riding takes a good chunk of its approach from pioneers who weren’t great horsemen, but still needed to use a horse for transportation. I mean, look at how western saddles today still tend to put you in a horrible chair seat. Much more comfortable for the desperate beginner, and they even feel more secure to boot, but everyone who’s been writing on the seat since Xenophon has said that the chair seat is one of the least secure seats you can have on horseback. When you’ve got a population that doesn’t really have good horsemanship skills, the hallmarks of a well-trained horse are going to change to suit that.

People like to rail on English riders for not giving two craps about groundwork and having these out of control horses, but they forget that modern English riding is the direct descendant of the cavalry schools from around the world. Could you imagine a cavalry charger that didn’t have manners as good as those of a western working horse? So why are people ragging on English riders now? I’d posit that it has to do with the manner in which information is transmitted between generations. Education in American western riding has always been an informal, oral tradition. English riding has had schools and formal programs for hundreds of years. Now that almost all of the schools have been disbanded, and the last large cohort of equestrians with cavalry training are dying off, the English model is being forced to switch to an oral, informal form of education. Perhaps the skills that an older English rider would take for granted for dealing with an unruly horse – the ones that would have been taught implicitly by virtue of dealing with dozens or hundreds of horses in an army remount program – are being taken to the grave.

[MGLpony]

Well, I don’t make an ordeal out of ground work or blow up at my horse when a small correction will do. That’s poor horsemanship in general. And maybe this is part of the problem…perceived or demonstrated exaggeration and animosity between disciplines. Another difficulty may be a lack of a definition of good or bad ground manners.

Seems like a similar discussion took place recently and I was surprised at how flippant and condescending some posters were regarding the horse quietly standing for mounting. To me, that’s basic safety and I spent my teenage years riding dressage.

Overall, I want my horse to be a good citizen that is a pleasure for me and others to be around. So far, I haven’t beaten, drugged, shut down, exhausted, or…my horse into submission. I have expectations of my horse both under saddle and in-hand. We’re a work in progress and it’s fun to see how light and responsive my horse can be with ground manners. Oh yeah, it’s not just overt training or drilling either; it’s noticing and then becoming fluent using all the little nuances of body language.

[Beck]

IME it is very much a consequence of rider/handler capabilities and expectations rather than discipline-related.

It happens that I have known far more ‘Western’ horses than ‘English’ ones that would bite, crowd your space (that’s a big one - very, very common!), had tardy and/or sloppy transitions, were girthy, and led poorly, among other uneducated behaviours. I expect that is mainly because the majority of ‘Western’ riders I have encountered have been casual, back yard types. I think there may be a bias toward riding Western if you are going to start from zero, go out, buy a horse and just ride it off into the sunset. I have been told (by ‘serious’ Western riders) that there may be a larger proportion of English riders who have more formal riding education: they tend to more commonly take lessons. At the same time I do know some few Western riders who are more serious about their riding and training, and their horses have good manners and better training.