How often should I do groundwork with my horse?

The right frequency of groundwork depends on what you are trying to accomplish and where the horse is in its training. For a horse with established ground manners that you ride regularly, formal groundwork sessions are less critical — the ground responses stay sharp through consistent handling during grooming, tacking, and leading, and a brief review at the start of a ride keeps the baseline solid. For a young horse being started, a horse with ground manners problems, or a horse coming back from time off, groundwork every day or every other day builds the repetition needed to create new habits and fill gaps in the foundation. The key principle is that groundwork should have a purpose. Going through the motions of longing a horse in circles for twenty minutes without a specific training goal often accomplishes little beyond tiring the horse. A fifteen-minute session that focuses on one specific response — a cleaner stop, a sharper yield, more consistent leading — does more than an aimless longer session. Groundwork is also a useful diagnostic tool: if your horse is consistently more difficult under saddle than on the ground, the gap between ground and ridden responses is telling you something worth investigating. Conversely, if the horse is difficult on the ground, resolving that before mounting will improve every ridden session. There is no universal number of sessions per week — the honest answer is as often as needed to maintain or develop the specific responses you need.