[QUOTE=ThatBayHorse;8214239]
Thanks for the tips. We are constantly working on softness and suppleness right now. She is not soft consistently, although we are working on it. I’ve backed up to ground driving right now and that seems to help. She’s an off track TB, so although she is a good girl, she has major homes in her education that we are working through. I do want a stong whoa. The backing is a good idea. She seems to get whoa means “sort of slow down”. Ill keep working![/QUOTE]
You had much good advice already and a neat video explaining how a well prepared horse can learn in minutes to “hunt for his stops”.
The key here is well prepared.
For what you say, your horse is not near ready for that kind of stop, needs his acre to stop and turn yet, for what you describe, as most OTTBs and OTQHs do.
Those are not skills they tend to learn while in race horse training and racing.
Not only that, even if they learn them, as we did taught ours, you don’t use those skills while in that discipline, you want your horse to ease up to stops, taking that acre to do it.
That is easier on them, their training doesn’t require that kind of athleticism, that depends on fast twitch muscles and quick moves to the point western events require.
How to train a horse so, when you want to start teaching the sudden stops, they can do so without jarringly hopping on their front end to a sudden stop, but gracefully melt into their stops?
You start when you first halter break them, they learn to give and be light and for that they learn to move their weight back and forth, over their hind end and back forward and sideways.
Once the horse is light on the leadrope or reins, bosal or snaffle ones, then you can ask for the same when riding.
We used to do a few seconds of on the ground requests a horse move properly before getting on, that we called flight check, told us if the horse was alert, willing and able to do what we asked.
Then we got on and, after waiting to settle in the saddle for a bit, so the horse would not anticipate moving on, we would then do the same, gently ask the horse to move here and there around to light feel of our aids, little at first, more as the horse was more advanced.
We would do that without thinking, it was just what you did before warm up and you could catch a horse not feeling good or sore somewhere thru that also, especially important for horses in hard training.
Then, once the horse had been warmed up and worked with in other basics, when the horse felt light enough all over, we would start to ask the more exact, correct immediate stop, as the video shows.
All that was never drilled on, is a few moves here and there as you are transitioning from one thing to are doing to another and never to the point you had to force anything.
If the horse was not light and responsive, you backed off and did something about that.
In the video that horse is not quite straight on one direction, so the rider really wants to work on that, but in that video he needs to keep it on topic, so while he mentions the horse having a sticky shoulder, he goes on without really getting that fixed first, but gives notice that needs to be addressed also.
You find all kinds of ways a horse is doing things right and where it doesn’t and are always training with a standard you are working for, if the horse gets there or not, not all are talented to do everything well.
The more technical aspects of riding are about concepts.
You learn how things work best, have the skills to ask for it and the horse that can do it, or will eventually get there, as far as it may.
Like with so much, it is sooooo much easier to learn all this by doing it with someone watching you, practicing first with a horse that already does it well until you get a feel for it and someone correcting you all along.
Since that is not the way most want to learn to do things, well, the results will be wildly irregular, as you are finding, as it seems your horse lacks the basics to learn the kinds of stops you are after.
No criticism of you or your horse, that is the way so many here do it also, not always getting anywhere on their own.
They smile thru those horribly resistant, bouncy stops, horse’s head in the air, open mouth and shaking their heads, the rider happy, thinking they are so great, the horse stopped so fast.
They are painful to watch for anyone that knows the difference.
At least you are seeing it is not working right and are looking for more information.
One caveat, if you are working on give with all that side to side and overflexing with the horse standing there, that is counterproductive to real collection, as it is disuniting your horse.
If you have a rubberneck horse now from that, you need to put the horse back together first, before you can ask it to move properly.
Very strong, aggressive riders with very good timing can do that, most of us prefer not to go there, keep the horse nicely together as a norm, leaving any disuniting by flexing or getting the horse scooting around, etc. to the rare time there is a problem that may address, which may never happen if the horse is handled properly all along.
I hope that will, with all that has been already explained, help you to handle your horse so you achieve true lightness and the smooth stops you are after.
