A horse bracing his front end in a stop
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!
rule is if you are going to walk your horse out of the stop you cannot say ‘Whoa’ to stop him. Stop him by pulling the reins (also known as ‘pulling your horse into the ground’). We never want the horse to realize that when we say ‘Whoa’ he can go forward. If you do this, it will come back to bite you somewhere along the line. Personally I like to pull my horse into the ground and when they have completely finished stopping I walk them forward pushing them up into their face, thus collecting them. I really like to drive
them forward with my legs so if they start trotting that is fine. This will help your horse learn he can move his front legs. I may only do this exercise twice, two times per week for a couple of weeks. You do not want to do it for too long as your horse will start to think ‘forward’ instead of stopping. It is a juggling act and your horse may start coming out of the stop by going into the ground with his hind legs, but then coming out and back in again. If your horse does this, start backing them up again until they stop properly again.
Here’s a story. Many years back when I rode a reining horse for the first time with Ron Ralls (two time World’s Greatest Horseman / World’s Richest Stock Horse Champion / Snaffle Bit Champion, plus many other titles) he told me to run the horse down the arena and say ‘Whoa.’ So off I went, full speed, and said ‘Whoa.’ The horse didn’t stop, or so I thought, so I pulled hard on those reins thinking I had best quickly give him a consequence for not stopping. All of a sudden I heard Ron shout, ‘NO NO NO, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!’ I explained to him that I had pulled on the reins because the horse hadn’t stopped and we were still moving. Ron told me that the horse had gone into the ground and was about to make a 25 foot sliding stop and I had just punished him. I had made the mistake that I now see lots of my clients and beginner reiners make. When you are running a horse down the arena and say ‘Whoa’ for them to stop you must keep in mind that you are asking for a ‘sliding stop’ therefore you will still be travelling forward for quite some time, depending on how well your horse can perform the manouevre. Learning the correct feel of a good sliding stop is crucial in advancing your reining horse and ultimately yourself.
Walking out and collecting a horse after a stop ABOUT PATRICK
A lot of our readers know Patrick Hopgood from his award winning WHUK series ‘Training: Start to Finish.’ Patrick has moved back to the US where he and his wife Nikki run Hopgood Performance Horses. Visit
www.hopgoodperformancehorses.com
www.westernhorseuk.com
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