Riding Skills for Working Moms Now... 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... we got the basics of using your seat... Those are the basic skills and strengths you will need to improve your horsemanship. Before you go on to the next, be sure you understand the previous five lessons and are well on your way to making them better everytime you ride. Even tho I'm starting to sound like a broken record... - 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  Lesson 2 to Lesson 5 need to become new habits. Things you do without thinking about them. You need to do them so consistently that you start doing them subconsciously. And Lesson 1 needs to be part of your strength building routine. Everytime you ride. Even if it is only once a week. Now on to the lope. I haven't talked about the lope before, because I wanted to build your strength and skills first. Now we'll use the lope to further build your balance and strength. Same thing as the trot, just get in a lope and lope a lot. About 5 or 6 times around the arena, then switch directions and go again. Use your legs to take the shock as much as you can. I'd rather have you stand in the stirrups, than bounce on your horse's back. Matter of fact, if you bounce at all, stand the lope. You don't have to stand big, just enough to relieve your horse's back. This is something that is little understood in horse-land. The good riders, the ones that look like they are just flowing along, are using their legs to dilute the horse's motion. Even going bareback or without stirrups, they'll still use their thighs and a little bit of their knees to maintain quietness in the saddle. As you can imagine that takes a little strength. Soooo... Let's build your strength. Remember, riding is a Sport, so you'll have to work at getting better. And seeins the most important part of the lope is being on the correct lead, we'll have to talk about it right now. BUT!!! Whether your horse can pick up both leads or not does not matter to the point of these lessons here. These lessons are for you, not for training your horse. But we do want you to learn to distinguish between the leads. As you lope, look down at your horse's shoulders. One of them will be moving for a bigger step than the other one. If it's the left one, you are on the left lead. Now... Looking down at the shoulder is something that works, but it's also something you don't want to do forever. Feeling the lead is not that hard to do. If you are going to the left and your horse is on the left lead, he will feel smooth underneath you. If he's on the right lead (the incorrect lead), he will feel like a washing machine in the spin cycle with an unbalanced load. Especially when he's coming around the corners. Also, your left leg will be slightly forward and your right leg will be slightly back. If you try to move those legs, you'll find that moving the left one back or the right one forward is very hard. But moving the left one even further forward is easy, and so is moving the right one further back. This is another example of Lesson 5, where we talked about your back reflecting the horse's back. If a horse is in the correct lead he will be bent slightly to the inside. And your back and hips will reflect that. And the place it shows up is in your legs. So look down, see what lead he's on, then look up and learn to recognize your horse's feel. Even if he's on the wrong one, learn what that feels like. Remember, these lessons are for you, not your horse. You'll train your horse a lot better if you can ride better. Q When the last instructor I had at my barn before I bought my own place, would fuss at me at the lope for "bracing in the stirrups" - she told me that my legs should be relaxed...yeah...you say it's ok to put pressure, even stand? Is there a difference between me putting pressure down in the stirrups to balance myself and bracing? Asked by Cassie1 on Horsecity General Horse Talk Board A There is a difference between standing in the stirrups and bracing in them. If you are bracing in the stirrups, you are locking your hindend into the saddle using stiff legs thrust forward into the stirrups. That is the reason you are having a hard time putting one leg back and one leg forward. Your legs are braced. But standing in the stirrups means that your legs are not braced, but that they are bearing weight and your butt is loose in the saddle. When you are using your legs to brace, your butt is wedged against the cantle. But when you are using your legs to stand, your butt should be out of the saddle slightly and your weight should be in the middle of the motion, just a tad bit forward. Bracing puts you behind the motion badly. It is usually a result of new riders bending over backwards to try to make their butt stick in the saddle. Put your hand on the saddle horn or better yet, grab some mane about halfway up the neck. Stand in the stirrups and kick him into the lope. Keep standing up, get your balance. You'll get better at riding the motion and you'll lower your seat automatically. And after that it's easy money. And you'll find your legs freeing up. On the cover of Western Horseman Magazine this month(Feb2006), you can see the guy on the gray horse bracing in the saddle. Legs are forward, butt is locked in the cantle, and his horse is clearly unhappy about having to carry his heavy *ss on his kidneys all day. Look at the pic I posted up above. I'm standing in the stirrups, in balance, but not really out of the saddle, ready to go where my horse needs to go. If I was to want to sit the lope more, all I'd do is weight my butt just a little more, lean back just a tad, but keep my legs under me as shock absorbers. Voila... sitting the lope. Oh, yeah, slowing down would help too. LOL Q I haven't paid any attention to what lead she's on, but I'd bet its the wrong one..so if we are going around in a circle, say clockwise and my right leg is the inside leg...which lead should she be on? right? How do I change leads? Asked by Cassie1 on Horsecity General Horse Talk Board A Yup. The right front leg should be taking a longer, bigger step than the left. There are two ways to solve this... On account of you saying that you don't have a good seat at the lope and dearly need to practice it... I'd say, lope across the arena and go the other way. At this point it is much more important that you get better at loping than whether or not your horse is loping on the correct lead. But for the future... To switch leads, you should drop to the trot and try again. Try it in the corner. Try to get the first lope step as you enter the corner. But your horse may be one that has loped on the same lead for the last 10 yrs. He may be very set in that lead. Again... Learn to lope first afore you attempt to teach him to catch the other lead. If these riding tips help you, why don't you try the Online Clinic? The training process will install better riding habits. And each maneuver is demonstrated w/ lots of pictures and many vids. You'll also receive personal advice over email.