Whether you’re leading your horse on the ground, or riding him, having a horse that dives and pulls to keep eating grass all the time is extremely irritating.
Table of Contents
Prerequisites
Remember to go through the Groundwork Fundamentals first. You need to have established the very basics with your horse, to make sure you can control the his moves.
Security
First, I invite you to solve the problem from the ground, before doing it from the saddle. Why? Because, I do advise, once on the saddle, to work that grazing issue in a rope halter and a lead rope, so you never risk to hurt your horse’s mouth by pulling too hard on the reins and bit. If you ride in a hackamore, there’s no problem.
Stopping a horse from eating grass
The solution to that issue is really simple, it just requires patience and consistency. And that’s the trick: make sure you never give up, because your horse will know your limits pretty soon. In a nutshell, every time your horse brings his head down to eat the grass, bump on the rope. That’s it!
Just keep tugging on the lead rope until he brings his head back up. He will quite quickly understand that, if he wants to avoid that uncomfortable bump, he should not bring his nose down. He will try again, sooner or later, and that’s when you need to consistent, don’t give up, show him you will always respond with the same tugging on the rope, and soon HE will give up, and keep paying attention to you all the time.
Naturally, you should combine this with exercises: lungeing, or even better practice your circles and half circles. That will force your horse to stay focused on you, to listen to your cues, and will let him less time to think about that tempting grass…
