Does my horse need groundwork?
The modern sport horse is very different to its counterparts from the past. His body is less stable, which is why he needs to develop core strength and balance before he can carry a rider.
The teachings of the old dressage masters form the basic principles of training horses that we still follow to this day. Every good trainer will tell you, if you really want to be a good rider, you need to study the old masters. While their teachings are still valid, there is one thing we should not forget. The horses they were riding in their time were different from the horses we are riding today. In the old texts, there is a lot of talk on how to develop the horse through ridden work and less emphasis on how to develop the horse from the ground. This can lead one to believe that the young horse does not really need ground work to develop into a happy and healthy athlete. While this might have been true back in the glory days of dressage, this is not the case anymore today.
Here are some ways in which the modern sport horse is different to his ancestors:
In anatomy textbooks, the lamellar part of the nuchal ligament is shown to attach to all of the lower cervical vertebrae. Extensive dissections done by Sharon May-Davis have shown that this is not the case in modern horses. The ligament does not attach to C6 or C7 and in some cases not even C5.
There is a high incidence of malformations in the last two cervical vertebrae, especially in Warmbloods. This will affect everything from how the horse's muscles attach to how the nerves in that area function. This can have a huge impact on the horse's performance, soundness and quality of life.
The modern sports horse is hypermobile. His joints naturally have a much greater range of motion than they used to. This is great for scoring points in the show ring, but bad for the horse's long-term soundness.
Groundwork doesn’t have to be just boring work on the lunge. It can include work in hand, working over poles or walking outside in nature.
The recurring theme here is a lack of stability and a lack of support. Horses today need more stabilizing muscles, a stronger core and better posture than they did a few hundred years ago. And the way to give them all that is ground work. Building up the horse's muscles and teaching them to move in good posture offers the stability their bodies need to be able to carry a rider. The modern horse can compensate for a lack of balance in a million different ways. They are so flexible, they can imitate advanced dressage movements, even though their backs are tense and their pelvises are stuck in one position. They are really, really good at tricking us to think they are ok, when they are not. This is why it is so important to make sure we teach the horse how to carry us, before we ask them to do it. Never underestimate the importance of ground work. In the modern horse, it is the key to soundness.