WHOA!!!!

We all seem to be after that long sliding stop. Number one you can’t get over a couple of feet if your horse is barefoot or has regular shoes on the back. To get those long slides we have to put sliders on our horse. But we are getting the sliders ahead of the horse in this case. Stops need some fundamental work before anything like shoes can help you. First you have to ride that means that you can’t sit there like a sack of potatoes but move with your horse. We ride with good posture our spine is erect, legs hugging the horse, driving with our seat, then to stop legs off, slouched spine, no pressure forward. This makes a clear difference for the horse. As riders we can’t slowly dribble to a stop we need black/white, on /off, go / stop. You have to be pro-active in your riding. In other words you need to ask your horse to move forward with every step. To achieve that go back to the very first lessons and put both legs on your horse and squeeze to make him go forward. Don’t squeeze with your knees or upper thighs but only with your lower calf. It is like hugging your horse with your legs rather than pushing into its sides. Don’t stand in your stirrups. Move your hips forward to encourage the horse to move forward as you go. You know the drill! If you don’t go back and read from the beginning of this blog. Now let’s try some stops. With your legs on and you pushing the horse forward with your hips there needs to be an increase in his impulsion. To get that you need to speed him up a little just before the stop. You can’t let him slow or just go the same speed before the stop but instead he must be speeding up just a little. At the same time you have to let your shoulders move back just slightly back of vertical and drive harder with your hips and legs. When it comes time for the stop you pull back slightly on the rein, take both legs off the horse by straightening them forward (not out to the side). They should act as a brace but not push you out of the saddle. Your shoulders should slump down towards your saddle horn as your hand comes back and you should set very deep in the saddle. Make sure you do not elongate your stomach as you would if you drove your shoulders back further, but instead drop them and let your stomach collapse like you just got hit in the stomach and lost all your air. In fact it helps many riders to take a big deep breath on the rundown and let it out all at once when the stop is called for. If you are thrown forward then you brought your shoulders forward rather than down and you probably pushed too hard with your legs thus making your whole body rigid. What is called for here is a definite change form going forward with lots of pressure on your horse to no pressure and a resistance in your body and hands to forward motion. You will try to be flexible in your whole body. If you get rigid then you will be unable to do much more than bounce. Rather than trying to do all this at a lope you should first do it at a walk and then a trot. Lots of trotting stops will really help when you try to do them from a lope. There is a rhythm in your horses lope and you must ask at the right time in that rhythm in order to get him to stop well. You need to ask for the stop as your horses hips come forward just before they land. You will be pushing the horse forward with your hips as his front legs go forward and as soon as they land the horses back legs will leave the ground. That is when you stop riding and ask for the stop at stated above. Remember to go back to the trot is your timing is off or if you get thrown forward of the saddle. Relax!