Teaching the spin

[OneGrayPony]

I think the big sorrel gelding and I are going to try the ranch pleasure division at our show on the 15th and 16th, since we aren’t quite 100% there for WP yet.

I watched the last show, and the winners were both reiners, in part because their spins were much better and also because they did flying lead changes.

My horse doesn’t have a lead change yet, but I’m thinking that’s enough time to school an ok spin. He does very well pivoting to the right (because he did a lot of halter and showmanship) but it all falls apart to the left and we get a belly-ish spin. How do those reiners get them to spin in both directions and do they change the pivot foot?

Any links/tips/etc?

[bcody]

I’m not a trainer, so can not help you there. But, they should pivot on the inside hind leg.

[aktill]

Good read re: spinning, especially on which hind:
http://esiforum.mywowbb.com/forum1/913.html

[bcody]

Thanks Aktill. My mare pivots on her outside hind, which is not an issue in the short stirrup class for my daughter, but loses her points in other classes. Very interesting to read about.

[SilkSkotch]

Spins are all about forward movement.

Horses should be pivoting on their inside foot to do this. You can find lots of videos on youtube about this.

My first reining training had be doing alot of quarter spins. so start with a forward jog and start to circle down into a spin, once you get one crossover in the front trot out of the spin. This helps to keep the forward movement. Once you can do a nice quarter spin start doing the same with half a spin and so on.

I find this really helps to tune my gelding up to listening to my cue.

Also when I go for a spin i swing my inside leg forward a bit and and put a bit of pressure on my inside seat bone.

I hope that make sense!

Good luck, the ranch classes look pretty fun!

[SouthernYankee]

SilkSkotch is right on the money.

Start trotting a tight circle, keep the forward movement… My finished reiner gets this excercise to keep him honest with planting that leg. it’s alot more comfortable for him to spin than trot a tiny circle so I’ll make him trot that tiny circle with every other step crossing over, then when I take my inside leg off and let him spin he will plant that back leg and spin a hole in the ground.

[Fillabeana]

Disclaimer:
If you WANT to go win at reining, which can be really fun, please disregard the following.

A horse cannot make an athletic move after a cow, if he learns to use the inside hind foot to pivot. He’s going to be a beat behind, always. In order to be able to leap out after a cow from any point in his spin, he has to make that spin like a dressage pirouette, which is to say using the outside hind as his pivot point.
Of course, a horse in a reining class will NEVER be asked to leap out of a spin to gallop after a cow.

Most ‘Working Cowhorse’ classes (Snaffle Bit Futurity) will forgive a horse that doesn’t ‘spin like a reiner’. These horses won’t spin that way, because it pretty much trips them. A ‘reining spin’ is a ‘pirouette’ on the wrong lead.
If you do reining spins a lot, and fast, you can be very hard on a horse’s stifles and hocks. Not for nothing are reining horses’ joints very commonly injected. I was really sad to hear a friend’s story about her 3 year old, who was lame and therefore injected (stifles and hocks) a month before the Futurity. Her trainer said it was almost expected, it was unusual not to have to inject one. Sigh.

If you are doing a spin as a stylized, fun trick for a reining class, fine. A long sliding stop isn’t very useful on the cows, either, but it’s fun to do and fun to watch.

If you don’t drill the enjoyment out of the horse, I don’t have a problem with it, but if your aim is to be good at working cattle, I wouldn’t train a horse to pivot on his inside hind for a ‘spin’ on purpose.