I have tried searches but it appears to be a hard term to search for as I’ve not had much luck. Could someone explain what this term means exactly?
Thanks 
I think it is not quite the same every place, but defined differently by regions.
Here it is how you teach a horse to give with it’s whole body, one old timer explained it as teaching a horse, generally a colt the first few times you worked with it on the ground, to respond to a light, quick pull on the reins by moving over it’s hind end.
He called it to connect the rein to the hind legs.
Then you could also double once horseback thru that same light pull, that the horse then would have learned it meant to gather itself over it’s hind end and turn smoothly and softly around.
Some times you double close to a fence and that helps the horse follow thru the turn, because of the fence, without you needing to help all the way around and so the horse coming out of it moving on smartly, not impeded by you needing to help him finish the turn and that slowing it down.
Doubling is a very basic technique, but done right it can make the difference between a horse plodding along and one that is light on it’s feet from the first you work with it.
One basic way to start one, after they learn to give a bit, is to throw the rein/leadrope over the horse’s head and guide it around away from you and around itself, the opposite of leading it to you.
Doubling properly can teach a horse humans want something and how to give.
Doubling a few times before getting on can tell you if a horse is willing or having a bad day.
You generally only double a horse a couple or three times and go on to something else, maybe double it again later, never overdo it, it tires horses greatly and can get one to scotching, anticipating and even sour one.
Done right, you end up with a very light horse.
Done wrong, you end up with a horse resisting, not cooperating.
Disengaging the haunches, but with timing. Buck Brannaman actually told me that doubling was the same movement whether your timing was good or not, and disengaging implied good timing, but it’s semantics.
Read down on here http://www.hackamore-reinsman.com
Thank you very much!
Do you guys find it to be a useful thing? Is it something best done in a hackamore?
Is it kind of a differently worded, but similar concept to a “one-rein stop”?
Should it be done at w/t/c? If your horse has already been started, is this something you should avoid?
It doesn’t has anything to do with a one rein stop, that disunites a horse in a rather strong way, something most riders should never go there.
While some use doubling TO disunite a horse, it is not the only way you can use that technique and rarely used for that here, but to teach a horse to respond better to a light pull.
I would say, like so much else with horses, hands-on is best.
Try to find someone that starts colts and trains and have them show you how to do it, then you can practice it on your horses.
You can’t ever know enough and some time, somewhere, you may just find some odd trick you found to fit the situation.
I wish I could learn hands on, but down here in south Florida I have yet to find anything remotely close 
Feel free to disagree with Buck Bluey, makes no difference to me.
I find it useful once in a blue moon as “the crayons have been snapped, let’s save our collective butts” move, but that’s it. IOW, we’re heading in one direction in a manner that’s not going to help the situation, and our usual lines of communication aren’t working. Usually if I have to use it, I’ve gone too far with a training concept somewhere else. Most folks define it as what prevents a hackamore from being a “bluff”.
If you have the timing to do so at canter, go for it. Some people do…I’m more likely to send my horse a over teakettle if I take his legs away at that pace.
Depends on your definition of double though. Bluey is talking more about a rollback type maneuver, rather than what Buck did. Richard Caldwell and a few other I’ve learned from did something more along the lines of a rollback/tiny circle hybrid.
Richard used doubling a bunch…his videos have lots of examples. He was emphatic that one should double any time a horse leaned on the bosal even by an ounce. I never really got on with that thought, personally.
If you take a horse with too much energy and ping him back over himself, it tends to build that energy since he likely feels restricted. You then need to be able to do something with the energy, so be warned.
Try using the term “doblar” in your search engine. Ed Connell uses that term for it quite a bit in his book Hackamore Reinsman.
Mary Twelveponies explained the concept well in her book “There Are No Problem Horses, Only Problem Riders”.
Sheilah
[QUOTE=froglander;7922294]
I have tried searches but it appears to be a hard term to search for as I’ve not had much luck. Could someone explain what this term means exactly?
Thanks :)[/QUOTE]
I did try to search for some videos maybe showing how it is done, on the ground and horseback, but also could not find any, you are right.
I guess it is so basic and so common, no one thought to show those few moments someone may spend turning a horse around a bit to lighten and sharpen it up?
I did find one explanation here, except that I was told not to back a horse when doing turnarounds or doubling or any other time than backing, because horses may anticipate then and back.
Also, reining, you lose points if your horse backs more than with one foot at any other time than backing, so you don’t want the horse’s motor memory to include backing when nervous or confused or anxious:
[QUOTE=BEARCAT;7923399]
Maybe this?
http://youtu.be/8KcsJrr9ix8[/QUOTE]
Well, a bit like that, but we were always told to set the horse up properly first so it is learning to rock over it’s hind end.
Don’t let it get it’s body discombobulated scrambling around and just work with our hands on the horse’s head.
That would have been considered overdoing and rough, but what do I know, he is the one demonstrating and has his reasons to do it like he does.
There is no one size fits all when training horses.
Far as I always understood it, doubling was used when horses were trained in a bosal, as a demonstration that they could be controlled, and not able to run through it
In true doubling, a horse was not set up for that reverse in direction. It was done at a lope, taking slack out of one rein, suddenly, without warning and turning a horse around in his tracks
This is what it meant in the old Vaquero way of training, and also proves my previous point, that the old Vaquero tradition of producing a bride horse often used harsh techniques
Some of the harsh old-style Vaquero methods included “doubling” a horse by pulling his head sharply to turn him, tying his head to his tail so that he would give to the hackamore or sometimes leveraging the hackamore in such a way that the horse’s face was raw and bloody at the end of the day.
here is the link, where Leslee Cornell, son of Ed Cornell , posted his father’s letter, in which Ed Cornell is responding to a rancher’s question on what exactly is meant by doubling a horse
http://www.hackamore-reinsman.com/
This old Vaquero training method is where the term came from, and since then it is often used to refer to an actual training technique, where the horse is set up, cued, ect., but that was not the original case.
here is the link, where Leslee Cornell, son of Ed Cornell , posted his father’s letter, in which Ed Cornell is responding to a rancher’s question on what exactly is meant by doubling a horse
http://www.hackamore-reinsman.com/
This old Vaquero training method is where the term came from, and since then it is often used to refer to an actual training technique, where the horse is set up, cued, ect., but that was not the original case.
From that letter:
Remember, doubling is a hard pull to the side with the rein gripped half way down to the heel knot of the hackamore. Remember this: always pull when the horse’s front feet are leaving the ground, on the way up. Doing this enables the horse to get his hind feet up under him. If the pull comes at the top of the movement he will hit the ground with all four feet. If the pull comes on the way down in the movement he will hit on his front feet. At the start it is always better to double the horse while he is galloping against an obstacle. It is always better to not let the horse run too fast before doubling. If he tries it, pull him before he gets going fast.
he only place in the Western Hemisphere that the reined horse was ever made was in California. In years gone by the Southwest never made the reined horse but they made some very good self working horses on cattle. They never doubled their horses and the same for the North as the Grazer bit went up there with the early day trail herds with the Tejanos.
In the last several years I have been corresponding with a famous European horseman who is also a historian and he tells me that the only place in Europe where they break horses, that doubles the horse is in Andalucia, Spain. So that is where the Californian got the doubling through the Conquistadores in Mexico, and then up to California with the Mission Padres and the Mexican occupation of California in the 1800’s. Very interesting to look back on.
My guess, doubling means different things to different people, or is applied differently by different people.
To some, it is just turning the horse, any one way, the horse has to do whatever it does with the rest of the body, just so it gives to the hand.
For others, there is more to it, the horse is supposed to give in a way it does rock first over it’s hindend properly, be in that moment where it’s body is ready to give and more correctly for certain way of moving.
I will say, I was around plenty of andalusian trainers and no one I ever saw was doubling a horse in the way it is understood in western riding, looking for that swift and athletic turn.
Andalusian training was measured and forward, horses were not what western ranch riders call “handy”, one possible result of doubling when done correctly.
Andalusian trainers were teaching a horse to turn just like everyone else.
I think that someone in Europe may just not possibly be aware of the degree of difference there?
Hunh. Never heard that term before, interesting history and usage. Thanks COTH for the lesson!
