Learning to Ride a Horse

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"Speed Up Your Slow Horse," Issue 5, part 3 of our FREE monthly newsletter

From our How to Break a Horse Series:

"The fix for the lazy horse can be done while doing any riding exercise. The first thing that makes a horse responsive or lighter is having a clear cue. A cue is something that you ask the horse and can get the horse to do. That means a cue to stop will be picking up the reins. That would be a cue to stop. A pre-cue is something you do before the cue. A pre-cue is "ho." If I go forward and I say "ho," and he doesn't stop, I'm going to say "ho" and pick up the reins to say "That meant stop." So pretty soon, when I go forward and I say "ho" the horse stops. So a pre-cue is something you do before a cue that makes a horse lighter and more responsive. It's the same thing with your legs. What do you do before you use your legs? You sit forward, pick up the reins, kiss to them. But what's the first that you do before you squeeze or kick your horse? You take your legs out. You take your legs out, then you bring them together. So practice that. Practice taking your legs off and if he doesn't move, then tell the horse "Hey, that meant move" with a kick. And when you bring them together, be prepared to kick them until something happens. So practice that and pretty soon, when you take your legs away from the horse's side (as if to kick), that'll mean "move forward." So I'm not using my legs to keep kicking my horse. Practice this and remember, when you bring them together, bring them together hard enough to get a change of leg speed. If you kick him and you just kick him to keep him going, then…"

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Lyons Training 101 Issue Number:  Three Building Your Foundation written by Josh Lyons & Keith Hosman

Issue Three, Part 3 of 3

What To Do With
Horses That Want To Bolt, Buck or Blow Up

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Let's say your horse decides he want to blow up or have a wreck. Well, there’s nothing magical about a snaffle bit - it won’t keep the wreck from happening - but it will allow you to pick the place where it happens. If your horse says "I'm going to blow up here and buck you off," you can say "Uh, no, the ground here doesn't look soft enough. I thought I saw a softer spot over there." And so you ride over a few feet and your horse says "Okay, now I'm going to buck you off." But I say "Nope, I was wrong, you were right. That spot over there was a whole lot softer. Let's ride back over there."

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So I ride back to the other spot and keep changing directions. I keep asking and he keeps saying "Alright, alright, we'll have our wreck over here." I continue moving him around and pretty soon he decides it's too much trouble to blow up. If I had picked up on two reins and tried to control that energy, then I would have been begging him to blow up. No, I tell him to go – and to keep going.

Nothing else matters in those situations. It doesn't matter if other riders are near you or where the horse wants to get to. The more the horse wants to think about something else, the more you’ll give him to think about. This is not punishment, don't see it that way. See it as learning: You’re learning that you can avoid a wreck - and your horse is learning that acting up is just too much trouble.

Bottom line: If your horse bucks, if he bolts, whatever he does, as soon as you look at the ground at where you think you're going to hit, that's where you're guaranteed to land. So stay on top of your horse, look at your horse, ride your horse. Don't be a passenger. Work. Ask him to do something.

End of Issue Three, Part 3
 
 

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