Fun with Liberty
- Posted by Cynthia Adams
- On July 3, 2021
- 2 Comments
Its been a while since I’ve posted. Thought I would share a video of me and my mare doing liberty together.
What is liberty? And why is it a good thing to work on? To start with, liberty is working on the ground with our horses without the use of halters or bridles.
Liberty is a great way to help develop more effective communication between horse and rider. Liberty helps develop increased trust and a better relationship. Advanced liberty also helps the horse build better balance and learn to be in self carriage. So lots of great things to love about liberty … plus it looks pretty cool 😉
The biggest reason use liberty with riders, is to teach people to be more effective with their body language.
The biggest reason to teach a horse liberty, or at least the prep work for liberty, is safety. When the horse can do basic liberty exercises (halt, back up, moving the shoulders and moving the hindquarters), the horse can focus more easily on us. They develop better respect of our personal space and as a result they are safer to be around. When they are spooky or nervous, they are less likely to jump into our personal space. If they get excitable, it is also much easier to regain their focus by simply going back to those basic exercises. I teach all horses (even those that I never plan on doing liberty with) the liberty prep exercises (halt, back up, moving the shoulders and moving the hindquarters).
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the video.
2 Comments