I am going to go back and correct myself. I wrote a while ago that making yourself stiff at a canter to get your horse to trot did not work. I further understand now why it actually should work. By tightening and holding your seat and thighs, you are constricting the horses forward movement, if you add your hip and weight cues to this, your horse is bound to stop . Not making your upper body stiff and unmovable, as I was doing, will stop you from loosing your seat. If all else fails you’ve still got your reins, but I think that what I try to aim for is eventually not having to use a bridle at all.
Then there is Parelli’s way of getting your horse to stop, which is basically to ‘stop’ riding. Which makes a lot of sense. Go ‘Blah’ on the horse, exhale and ‘stop’ riding, then horse says ‘oh wait! Whats this?’ and stops. That works if you have a touchy horse like Athena, but going ‘blah’ on a hard/stubbern or school horse will get you no where. My isse with this is that if it does not get the horse to stop the first time you have to use your reins right after, where’s in the first method you have three diffrent aids that you can use before you have to use your hands. Going ‘blah’ at a canter is difficult and more offten then not the cue will be ignored by the untouchy horse. That or I am doing it wrong. Which is compleatly probable.
Anyway. Thats my update on stopping a horse.
Lady was so odd today. I took her in the pasture today I had three jumps set up, all about 2 feet high. She was used to the two larger ones and I had a new one made of barrels, she did NOT want to jump the barrels even though it was shorter of the three. Shes like that with every new jump. She has to refuse it once or twice and size it up and then she’ll never miss. Great for the show ring aye? Then we went for a trail ride and I wasn’t going to ask her to go anywhere because it was hot and she had done well in the pen. She wanted to go and just kept going. She went to the end of a street where we have never gone any further because of the traffic and she kept going. It was silly. We got about a half mile down the busy street when a dog popped out from a house and a semi tuck with a tarp on top wized by. Let me tell you I thought I was dead. Lady bolted forward, I was bare back so I kinda almost leveled out with her back at first. It’s shocking how fast your brain works when you think your going to fall. She immediately caught herself though and stopped. Then she was alright and we walked back home. That was THE most bizarre spook I’ve ever ridden through. I was freaked out more at the end then she was. She wanted to keep going. If this were any of my other horses They would have been in Timbuctoo and I’d have been on the moon.
