Hi a friend of mine just bought a new horse and he is western pleasure and stock seat trained with a spur stop. We are having some difficulty figuring out all his “buttons” if anyone could explain the spur stop cues I would greatly appreciate it! Anything you can think of we need to know, from stop to go to legs yield etc! Thank so much!
Find a western trainer who shows at the better shows. Take some lessons from them. It is extremely hard to explain the nuances of the better trained horse, who responds to a brush of spur on his side. Location of the touch, your body position, all are part of a signal.
Truly, this is best shown, learned, demonstrated, in person. You can’t punish the horse for your signaling him inadvertently, yet it could injure you should he suddenly spin because you were off balance and touched him.
My friend got a highly trained reining horse because he was consIstantly lame, they were going to put him down. She wanted a pasture friend, figured with meds he could have a couple years more and she could enjoy looking at him in the field. So owners ended up giving horse to her. She takes excellent care of her horses. He is a really beautiful horse. She gave him some time to grow longer feet, got on for a short ride because he was not lame one day. Because she started touching him on the sides, she got the ride of her life!! Said it was like sitting on a hurricane! He spun and then spun the other way until she was dizzy. Luckily my 2nd friend yelled “stick your legs way out!” which removed all touching, so horse stopped. It took a bit of time to calm her down, get undizzy, before she could dismount without thinking she would fall down! She has since learned to ride the horse with skill using a Trainer, no surprises now.
You got a nice horse, now spend some more money to learn how to ride him well, from an expert in that kind of riding. Consider it an investment in keeping horse at his best skill level. You won’t mess him up.
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Yeah, you need some help here. He could just be super sensitive to any leg cues compared to English horses and Western horses with less refined training. In other words you could be over cueing.
Or, he’s actually trainied with a spur stop, which is backwards from any other discipline. Meaning he has to be untrained then retrained by somebody with a good understanding of how the horse was taught and ridden and what needs to happen to reverse that.
You need some in person, hands on help. Had a friend with one of these who gave up and learned to ride with the spur stop training. It worked for what she wanted to do with it plus it was an older horse with many, many miles doing it that way. Both horse and friend were getting confused and frustrated and friend figured it was easier and less aggravating for her to adapt then trying to remake the wheel trying convert the horse.
IMO and E it’s really hard and time consuming to re educate horses trained that way if it’s been ridden that way for years. And they can revert when least expected. Understand why they do it, don’t agree. But that doesn’t help if you end up with one.
Have you tried talking to the previous owner for advice?
If that’s not an option, from what I understand of the method is that a steady pressure is for a slow or stop. Other aids will depend on the level of the horse’s training and what it was trained for or by whom.
In general, the horse should slow and eventually stop if you reach your spur down and then close your legs, starting at the calf and working down to spur as needed. Release when desired response is given. To go, take weight out of your stirrups and “flap” legs until desired pace is given.
