whip

by Wendy Barker

The response could be yielding by moving forwards, sideways, backwards, or by slowing down or stopping. Rewarding the desired response from the horse by immediately ceasing an aid (some riders will perceive this as for instance lightening the weight in the rein) is the lynchpin in applying effective learning theory.

Reacting in the correct way to the whip is a learned response for a horse, not a genetically inherited response.

right way, then it will be more willing to respond in that way in future.

Horses that have been abused with a whip in the past will often respond in the wrong way - tightening their back and stiffening joints when the goal will normally be to ask the horse to become more supple and elastic. Most horses can be re-educated to a whip after a whip has been misused on them, it is a process that can take a great deal of time and patience but it should never have to occur. Desensitising an over reactive horse to a whip quietly from the ground can help a horse to accept the whip when it is ridden.

T IMIN g IS CRITICAL TO ge T TH e RI g HT R e ACTION

The whip is often used to refine the speed and quality of reaction in a horse. Experienced riders, after using an initial natural aidlike a leg or seat aid to ask the horse to go more actively forward, will, if the reaction from the horse is poor or slow, follow it within 1-2 seconds with a reinforcing aid (a quicker stronger nudge with the rider’s lower leg/heel, or one or more taps behind the rider’s leg with a whip), so their horse connects the two .

It takes experience for a rider on a horse to be quick enough to make the judgment instinctively and apply the stronger leg aid or tap with the whip to reinforce the aid within that short window of two seconds.

Skill with a whip is really just a matter of practice, the best way to feel comfortable with a whip is to start to practise carrying one. Once a rider has sufficient balance and coordination to ride with independent hands, it is time to start to carry a short (jumping) whip, and to carry it equally often in the left hand and the right. With a little experience, a rider can replace the short whip with a longer schooling whip.

Like a seat belt in a car, a whip carried by a rider should become ‘a part of the furniture’ for both horse and rider, so it’s best done every time a horse is