Hey everybody, it’s Krista with SaddleBox and for today’s video, I’m going to show you how to set your horse up for ground driving.
Alright, so if you don’t know what ground driving is, basically you attach some long lines or longer lead ropes to here and you hook it in the stirrups here, and then you follow your horse and it’s like you’re riding them, but you’re riding them on the ground. So it’s really great for teaching them how to steer, helping them to learn how to engage themselves, and just overall get used to the bit without you having to be on their backs.
Now, I will say, if you’ve never ground driven a horse or have never set up a horse to be ground driven, definitely do this in front of a professional or with a professional’s help. But I really recommend doing it only in a snaffle bit just because if something were to go wrong, you don’t want a big shank in their mouth or a different bit with leverage or gag or anything. A snaffle just has the perfect amount of give for this situation and it’s got the flexibility and everything that you need for doing this.
So I’ve got two just flat, cotton lunge lines to use for this. So I’m going to start by hooking this to his snaffle like so. Then I’m going to take this and run it through this stirrup, I need to unravel it a little bit so it fits right through here. Okay, so now that one is ready. And I’m just going to do the same exact thing on the other side.
Okay, so same thing here. It’s always important to run these through your stirrups because it’s going to be what holds these lines in place and doesn’t get them tangled or caught in your horse’s feet or anything, so don’t try doing this without a saddle or a long line girth or anything like that for safety reasons.
Okay, and now we are in the position to actually ground drive. You can do a lot of different things, like you can ask them to flex from here and kind of pull his nose around, he can back up, he can go forward. Now, don’t stand in the kick zone, especially if you don’t know the horse very well, always stand a bit away.
It also helps when you’re doing this for the first time to have a whip to encourage them to go forward because it’s kind of weird for them to go forward without you leading them in front of you. So the first time you do this, you may want to have a whip or a flag just to kind of encourage them to go forward. Here is the basic set-up.
Alright you guys, that’s it for this one, I hope you enjoyed it and I’ll see you in the next video. Bye y’all.