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Regular
Posts: 81
| My 3 yr old is FINALLY, beautifully, catching her leads... and has done a phenomenal job of relaxing and slowly collecting her self in the lope. I'm wondering if anyone has any favorite exercises to continue that development? What do you do to continue to slow and collect a colt at the lope? I'm currently loping circles with a loose rein and if she speeds up or begins rushing I back her down to a trot or stop her and then ask her to pick up her lead smooth and relaxed again. Although this is working, I'm just looking for some variety. :-)
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 Take a Picture
Posts: 12842
   
| small circles |
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 Serious Snap Trapper
Posts: 4275
Location: In The Snow, AZ | I like to change directions when my mare gets ahead of the speed I'm asking for. |
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 Straight Shooter
Posts: 5725
Location: SW North Dakota | Sit ups! LOL. Seems like if I concentrate really hard at keeping MYSELF in a steady rhythm in a 3 beat cadence, my horses will follow. If they are rushing through a certain section of a circle (like the part where they are facing "home"), I'll try to fix it before it happens. Like add a little pressure to the reins, sit down a tish and really focus on keeping myself in the same, slow candence. I'll keep loping them until their head drops, they relax and can lope several slow circles consectutively. Then I'll stop, take a new mouth, back them up and let them rest. Take lots of deep breaths and stay relaxed. I'm sure this sounds like "kindergarten" stuff, but I know I need to work on it continuously and it takes a lot of core control and concentration to keep it up. After a while, it gets easier- the horses get conditioned to following my cadence. To really emphasize it, I will do reining circles where I take larger, faster circles, then transition down to slow, smaller ones and go back and forth a bit. Seems like it doesn't take too long for them to look forward to the slow ones. It works on the hot horses, too- just takes more patience and time. |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 899
Location: Idaho | Circles. And a lot of wet saddle blankets.
Also I kind of agree with the whole balance thing, I was told a long time ago horses will speed up if they feel unbalanced because it is easier to balance going faster than slower. So I would be asking if you are causing her to speed up or not (if that makes sense). |
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 Balance Beam and more...
Posts: 11511
Location: 31 lengths farms | Ed Wright had me do small figure 8's with my mare, first at the trot with a counter arc position thru the middle towards the new circle (to get ready for the lead change when we went to the lope) worked like a charm and for her much better than simply stopping and rolling back to the new direction in a larger circle. For this horse pressure on one rein was all she could really handle so this drill worked especially nicely.
When I say small I mean like 8 foot circles...controlled her speed and her brain with the size of the circle and not the reins.
Edited by run n rate 2016-10-03 5:59 PM
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Veteran
Posts: 286
| Lots of transitions |
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