I was reading through some blogs recently, and it occurred to me, that some common trouble a lot of riders and their horses find themselves in, is that their horse has too much go, and not enough whoa.
While, “whoa” or “ho” is a good command, around here we don’t use verbal commands. We like our horses to tune into our seat and our body, so we can use the reins and our legs to refine the cues we give them for turnarounds, rollbacks, spins, or gathering up so we can do a canter pirouette (or swap directions quickly to corral an unruly bull come fall). Plus, anyone else can use “whoa” or “ho” and that might mean something to our horse when we don’t need it to.
Now, some of you are thinking, all of what you’ve just said is great, and that’s what I would love for my horse, but how do you accomplish that?
I have heard and read, that the way to solve a “charge-y” horse’s “problem” is to ask him to go. Sometimes that may be the key- in the case of say a barn sour horse– we may want to have him go to the barn quickly and make it a LOT OF work to be there, and then we’ll ask him to walk quietly away from the barn, and rest somewhere far away. We might repeat that process until he is mentally prepared to go back to the barn at the speed we’re riding. But on a horse like that, we probably already have some speed control to begin with. The trouble with asking a go-ey horse to speed up, is that eventually he’ll just get in better and better shape, and the go-iness won’t necessarily get any better- he will just last longer (and longer) before he tunes into you.
We also need to consider this: It is never the horse’s fault. If our horse has too much go, he’s only doing what he has been “trained” to do, or thinks he needs to do to survive. If you are a very tense rider, that can cause “tension” in your horse, and more often than not, the tense horse feels the need to move his feet. It’s how they have survived all these years.
So how do you gain speed control through your seat?
Running for home
You ride it. If you want your horse to walk, and he’s trotting away, the best thing to do is bend him around, by disengaging his hips (to one direction or the other), and send him out the other side at the speed you want to ride (or the speed at which you’d like him to go). When he comes out of that maneuver, walking a step-or-two, rub him. If/when he speeds back up, repeat the process. And realize when you are asking him to bend around, that you yourself need to be consciously thinking about what you feel like, and what your horse feels like at the walk, so you do not transmit any more energy to him than you need to.
It is probably most helpful to do this drill in a snaffle bit with split or mecate reins- and be quite deliberate when sliding your hand down the rein to bend your horse around. Take your time, and allow your horse to realize what is happening “BEFORE” he is asked to bend around and slow down. Horses are the masters at realizing what happened before what happened, and this is simply another way to help them. Before you know it, you can think about slowing down, and slide your hand down the rein, and wouldn’t you know it- your horse has beat you to the slow down!
Another great way to help them, is to do a lot of transitions. For example, you’d walk, and then ride with enough energy to get them to trot, then ride the walk again (or trot to extended trot or lope to trot). If they don’t realize you’ve asked them to walk (or slow down), you can bend them around and send them out the other side at the walk. Eventually, your horse will understand what’s being asked of him and he’ll start to ride as fast, or as slow, as you do and you won’t need your reins to control his speed. Then you can use your reins to collect him before a slow down, a turnaround, a stop, or a backup.
Here is a short video, of my other half, Zach Ducheneaux, sharing with us how to gain some speed control. Because the audio is hard to hear, I’ve typed out what he is saying below the video:
95% of the horses in the world are out of balance. They go faster than the people riding them want them to go. So everybody is always pulling on their face to get them to stop.
Now, if we make ourselves an expert on riding that horse slower without pulling on his face , work on our ability to rebalance them slower, every horse is going to be better.
That rearing up business, that’s feet that are too active. We can give them something to do with their feet in lieu of that.
If Chachi wanted to rear up, I’d just bring his big ol’ head over here, and say hey, how about you just move your feet. That’s cool. move your feet. If he’s doing this he cannot rear up. It’s not physically possible. Eventually the horse will be happy to park somewhere for you.
Now go smile while you ride, and “help” your horses!
Jenn Zeller is the creative mind and boss lady behind The South Dakota Cowgirl. She is an aspiring horsewoman, photographer, brilliant social media strategist and lover of all things western.
After a brief career in the investment world to support her horse habit (and satisfy her...
