Hello,
I initially work with all of my riders/students and horses I ride/train to do 1 main thing right away, which is to understand lengthening and shortening at each gait.
As in your case with your horse, it will be beneficial for you to teach your horse to have a “range” within each gait. In other words, not just a stop and a go at the exact same pace and frame every time. Your horse should be able to move forward and engage, open up and widen/lengthen itself from tail to nose at each gait, at your command. For example the walk would include a slow collected walk, a normal walk, a medium walk, a working walk, an extended walk. At the trot you would be able to ask for a slow trot, medium trot, working trot and extended trot, etc etc.
I do this by going over how a rider asks a horse to engage and move forward first, and I double check and ask this first because (especially with horses and riders I am working with for the first time), I find that often they either aren’t doing anything to ask for the lengthening/shortening, or they are not asking properly, or their horse simply does not respond to their body cues regardless). I tend to exaggerate the body communication at first for the horse to get a clear understand of the difference between asking for engagement while lengthening vs. compressing while shortening.
At the walk, I will ask for the horse to move forward with a loosened, slightly more relaxed body while encouraging my legs for the horse to move forward on a longer rein every few steps. I give more motion and pressure with my legs while remaining relaxed and loose in my body, making sure the horse is responding to my legs but not jumping into a trot. If it does, I half halt back to a walk and immediately relax and repeat, relax and repeat until the horse no longer trots. Horses that are not used to various speeds within each gait will need time to understand this.
Now, for the opposite…the shortening of the stride (the compression of the gait) it is important to make your body change clearly enough for the horse to understand the difference as I mentioned earlier. For example, to compress and shorten the stride at the walk, apply a half halt and shorten your reins to immediately compensate for the response, keep the horse moving forward only one step at a time, as if they are “crawling”. In my half halts, my body is taller, more upright in the saddle, less relaxation of my pelvis, and my weight is distributed straight down into my tail bone and directly into my heels. The horse feels this change in my body as a “hold” or “pause” of forward motion, and I work with the horse to compromise and stay consistent in a crawl forward, like applying tiny half halts every other step. When the horse understands and does well, I start to relax again and ask for the normal walk and gradually move to the extended walk as I first described above.
The technique of lengthening and shortening of the gaits is absolutely essential for example especially with jumpers when you have only seconds to ask your horse to power forward for a stride, or to hold back and compress for a stride. It’s also for example an excellent technique for doing equitation patterns when a pattern requires an upwards or downwards transition or change of speed at a marker. If you can achieve lengthening and shortening of the gait at the walk, trot and canter, you are also helping to prevent your horse from embarrassing head tossing, tail swishing, cow kicking, hesitating, etc. because your horse will be greatly in tune with your body communication and will have an instant, split second response to the point when you even “think” about the change, your horse will feel it and your cues become quiet and almost invisible… Try it : )
