Get Your Back Up
July 10, 2014
Written by: Josh Lyons & Keith Hosman
Written by: Josh Lyons & Keith Hosman
From our Learning To Ride a Horse series of free horse-training tips and articles: Improve your horse's back up. When you're teaching your horse to back up, remember that the farther you back up, the worse your back up gets. Think of it this way: If you want your horse to quiet down at a lope, you lope him, right? The longer you lope, the quieter the horse gets. And, yes, if you do this a lot, they'll get stronger and be able to go longer - but they will have learned to relax as long as you leave them alone as you ride. As long as you leave them alone and don't give them a reason to get more nervous, they'll relax. Just sit up there and relax, maybe sing a song.
If I were to back up long enough, the horse would relax - and get lazy - in their back up. If I wanted to make his back up or spin faster, then what I have to do is quit while they're speeding up, not when they're slowing down. So when I'm working on backing up, I may not care about the proper frame, I may just be concentrating on the energy, on backing quickly. I'll get the impulsion quick - and then quit. Maybe the horse was in the correct frame, maybe it wasn't. The bottom line is that if I quit when the horse is showing the energy, he'll get faster and faster. But if I quit otherwise, he'll get lazier and lazier. He may be quieter and calmer, but I'll lose his performance in the movement.
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Wanna teach your horse to drop its head and stay relaxed? When you're finished with this article, click here to read about the "Classic Serpentine." |
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