The Program Lesson 3 Spins

Circle down into a spin. Walk in a circle about 20 feet across. Make it as round as possible. Horse must be looking where he is going just like in a turn. You have outside leg pressure and out side hip down. Gradually pick up both your hands towards your inside shoulder pulling back just a little as you go. Don’t loose forward motion! The pull back is just enough to stop the rear legs but not enough to actually set the horse back too far. (Make sure your inside leg is off!) Spins are from forward motion so don’t ask your horse to back up. We want the hind legs to stop and the front legs to continue going forward crossing the outside leg over the inside leg. At first just ask for one step over and walk out of the spin. Go back into your circle and bring it down again. As the horse improves add more step over’s until you can do a complete 360 spin. Don’t worry about speed at this point just concentrate on correctness. Do several in that direction, then go to the other direction. In your daily exercise program you should repeat this exercise a couple of times before your work out is finished. Be sure not to lean or drop your shoulders into the direction of the spin. When your horse becomes more advanced you will need to make sure that the inside shoulder is up (something we will discuss in detail next lesson) and that you are using your outside rein as the impulsion rein. Don’t pull him around with the inside rein! We will work on head set as he gets to coming around pretty smoothly at a slow pace. Don’t rush any of this!