Suggestions For Stopping

[thelitas]

I have a girl in my 4H club who is a small teenager. She's a first year novice hunter rider, and she rode western for two years before that. She does not own a horse, but has leased three different horses from two different programs. The first horse she had was an old gaited horse, and the second horse was an old schoolie pony at my barn who is

Comments

[nitemoose]

Is your question just how to have her ride the sliding stop better, or how to have her stay on the horse when stopping in classes she's trying to stop but not slide in?

As far as the slide, the best description I can give is to sit deep, weight deep in stirrups and slightly forward, sit up tall and then crunch down abit like you got punched in the stomach. ("not leaning back like you good hit by a tree branch!", so says my coach)

As far as just staying on when riding "normally" and pulling the horse up, keeping weight deep in her stirrups and not being forward would do more of it - if she's focusing on weight in her stirrups she's likely not to be pinching with her knees, which will cause her trouble in an abrumpt stop. I think it all depends on how the horse was trained - mine knows the difference between when I sit down and pull her up to drop into another gait, and when I go into a stopping position, pull back and say Whoa.

I'd assume the horse is trained to stop with the "W" word, so young rider should make sure she's not saying Whoa unless she wants an abrupt stop (I know I nearly put myself on my ears when my mare came back from training and my bad habits about using that word surfaced...). I train mine to know the word "Easy", which might be a good thing to teach her if she wants a cue to get her to slow down a bit more gently without confusing her other signals. Mine know when I say that I'm asking them to slow/relax, but not asking for a "Whoa".

[nitemoose]

That's feet slightly forward, not weight or upper body, re: stop.