Knowing Your Horse
You’ll fine tune this technique as you go, and you’ll get better and better with it. I tell everyone to keep a booklet of exercises they’re going to do each day. Figure on doing one thing today, with the idea that you’re not changing until at the end of that session, you think, ‘boy, my horse was perfect today and he’s been perfect for two or three days in a row.’ Then you go to the next step. Always refer to your book of notes. If you’re thinking, ‘yesterday, my horse kind of ran into it, really didn’t want to turn, started going fast,’ then work more on going into the lead, until you can see that progress has been made. The booklet will give you a reference point of what to work on, because, frankly, most people don’t remember exactly what they did yesterday or the day before.
The key is that you have to be very regimented. When you ask your horse to lope off, don’t let him trot. Once you move away from the wall and he understands it well, and you’re out in the open, you set your hands and use your leg to collect his body up. You don’t want to allow him to trot off. At first he may get a little nervous about it, but ask him to canter off, and once he goes into that canter, release your reins and let him canter forward. If he trots, say “whoa,” walk forward and start again. Do that until he gets the idea that he’s not allowed to trot; he’s just allowed to canter off. At that point, a correct lope departure will be part of his routine. ■
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that you start checking your horse back a little, collecting him—then ask with your leg, and he’s going to go right into it. He’s going to think, ‘I’ve done this a thousand times! I know what she wants to do. I’m going to do it for her!’ Once he understands that, you don’t have to go to the wall all the time. You can be walking along, wiggle your bit a little, check, and he’ll know something is getting ready to happen. He’ll feel your leg moving, hear the kiss, and think ‘Oh, that means I’m supposed to lope.’ And he’ll lope. So, lope a lap and stop. Then lope two laps and stop. Repetition reinforces the lesson.
As you are asking for this lope and getting your horse to go into his lead, it’s going to be ugly at first. But as you do it for a couple of weeks, you’ll see a change. Pretty soon you’ll be able to walk up to a fence at that angle, squeeze, set your hands and wiggle the bit a little—so
Fence
So many times what I find is that when amateurs are asking a horse to lope, the horse doesn’t really understand the signal, so he trots a few strides and then finally goes into the canter. If he understands that when you touch his ribs with your leg right there, that means he’s going into the canter, he starts getting the idea. He becomes more responsive, and the more responsive he is, the more you can add a little more pressure on the bit with your hands, because you’ve done your exercises with the circles and he knows to be soft. And he’ll just roll his nose in and understand to lope off.
Next month: The first step toward using a bosal.
Tommy Garland, of Powhatan, Va., is a second-generation horseman with experience in a variety of breeds. Since 1985, he has specialized in Arabians, and won numerous U.S., Brazilian, and Canadian National Championships in western and hunter pleasure, with both purebreds and Half-Arabians. He is also known for his expertise with amateurs, and is one of the most popular clinicians in the equine industry, where his teaching is based on confidence, patience and respect.
AUGUST 2010 | 229