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Riding Skills for
Working Moms
| Hookay...
We got posting the trot a lot for muscle strengthening We got praising your horse We got using your leg for the turns We got reining correctly... |
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1. Develop Strength
- 2. Develop Communication - 3. Correctly using your legs. - 4. Correctly using your reins - 5. Correctly using your back - 6. Lope for more strength |
In my experience I have found that I can influence a horse greatly by making my back have the curve that I'm asking my horse to have.
Take a look at these pictures... My back has exactly the same curve that my horse (or mule) underneath me has, right or wrong... it is identical.
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| We are taking off at a spanking trot, and Bluey's
back needs to be free and open so he can power his trot.
Mine is the same way, right down to my head turned in the same direction as his. |
I am doing a turnback with Wendy. And I am balanced forward too much. Wendy's back reflects the same mistake... she is too much on her front end. |
In the set of pics above Hannah is teaching a stop and turnback. Paint missed his stop, and her back reflects his mistake. But he nails the turnback and you can see how her back is flowing with him. For Paint to learn to do a stop better, Hannah will have to overpower his back with her own... She will have to sink her seat underneath herself (so that he drops his hindend), and round her back (so that he rounds his).This will take strength and control on her part.
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| Take a look at this picture... Bay came to me with a head tossing problem. Above he is just loading up to start tossing his head. I know it's coming, and you can see me powering my back to keep the curve I would like for him to have. |
You can see how out of synch we look here. He is fully resisting, tossing his head, his back is hollow and his nose in the air. My back is still encouraging him to round and accept my direction, but since it is taking quite a bit of effort, I am tight and stiff. | Finally Bay relaxes and now you can see that both of us are loose and round. |
If you take a look at pictures of the pros in a horsey magazine, take a look at the shape of their backs. You will be able to learn a lot by noticing how they use it to sit the particular maneuvers they are doing.
The most important one I wanna draw your attention to Is the Stop.
For reasons too long to explain here, most people learn to pull on the reins while standing in the stirrups and bracing against the saddle horn.
That just so happens to be the worst possible way to stop your horse. Stopping your horse like that will guarantee that you will never improve your horses stop, maybe even consistently make it worse.
It puts all your weight on her frontend, making it almost impossible for her to keep that part soft and to use her hindend to loose speed. She will almost certainly start bouncing on her front end, if asked to stop from anything faster than the slowest trot.
Even the world champion reining horse will start stopping by bouncing on his front end if you are standing on it.
So, start the long task of re-teaching yourself.
At a walk, ask Pony to stop by...
- Throw your legs straight forward, putting weight into your stirrups, to absorb the forward motion.
- Finally, you can pull on the reins.
Again, whether or not your horse stops correctly is not quite so important here, as much as retraining yourself.
As you get that sequence down, start tightening it up. The correct aids for a stop are always in that order. But they get so fast that it seems like one single motion.
Also, consider getting help from a good reining or cutting horse trainer with specifically this problem. It is very important that you learn to consistently stop correctly. Your progress as a rider depends on this one thing.
English Riders...
The sequence for the correct stop is just about the same, except that you don't throw your legs forward. You leave your legs where they are, but loosen your thighs and weight the stirrups a tad to absorb any excess back action coming from your horse.
How 'bout you come to one of my weekend clinics... We can work on all of the skills for better riding and I can make sure you are getting them right. And we'd have a bunch of fun.