hello and today i would like to talk to you about how to get your horse to stop so i think i learnt
the most when i started horses under saddle when i started starting horses under saddle i learned the
most about how to train a horse from then because you take a horse that has no understanding of what
anything means and you need to find the way to explain to the horse what you'd like him to do
so no horse is born with a manual that tells him what he should do when you do what okay so
that's the one thing i really want you to keep in mind when you're thinking about training
your horse that they they have no understanding in the beginning and if you're having problems
stopping your horse and you obviously have some sort of communication error so stopping a horse
under saddle actually starts in the round yard when i'm starting a young horse
so you actually teach them to stop going around the round yard using your body language okay so
i'll step in front of the horse and he'll usually um flip and turn direction uh change direction
and eventually i work around getting that to be so that he faces me and stops
and it's all to do with pressure and release i put the pressure on and when he does what i
want him to do i take the pressure off and in the round yard that can be as simple as as he spins
towards me or away from me in the beginning because most horses will turn away from you
i will take a step back or take my body away from the horse because it works on body pressure
so here you see some footage of rebel in the very beginning of his starting under saddle journey i'm
just moving him around the round job with my body here and then you'll see in a minute that i take
a step backwards he must flick an ear or something at me i can't see it and then he turns in and it's
just coming up now watch me there i turn i take a step backwards turns sideways and he comes in
that's part of teaching stop so once he's learnt to sort of stop and face me with body pressure we
go on and do other things but we're just working on how to teach the horse to stop today and my
hope is by understanding the process you actually get some understanding on what's going wrong if
you can't stop your horse and then how to correct it so that is the aim of this video today when
i'm turning the horse in the round yard with my body pressure i also use the word whoa and i use
a downward tone with it that helps the horse to understand and gives a next a an extra aid sorry
that you're going to use under saddle because once you get in the saddle he's not going to
understand um what you want him to do so you need to get some building blocks happening
so once he's done that i teach the horse to stop with a bending on a halter so i pick up the
the rope of the halter and bend the horse i've done some groundwork videos go and look for
that playlist and you'll find in there where i'm teaching a horse to give to the pressure of the
halter okay and then you learn to pick up once you get onto the horse you learn to pick up the rein
and the horse should bend if you do this to your horse and he moves his feet i can tell you right
now that he doesn't understand that the rein pressure is just for bending here it's not a go
forward aid the amount of horses that you pick a rein up on i've got no other aid on my horse
and he walks off is unbelievable if he does that what you need to do is make sure you have a nice
short rein take your rein to your back pocket not in front of the saddle that's how you tip a
horse over to your back pocket make sure you're not squeezing with your legs and just sit there
whilst he goes round and round and round and round around in circles and the minute four feet
stop let go of the rein eventually you want to actually wait until he gives you a soft
feel on the rein but that's teaching your horse two things at once in the beginning he needs to
understand you want him to stop and then you want ah he was leaning on that then then you want them
to stop with a soft feel so that's how that starts under saddle then when i want to teach my horse
two rein stop in the round yard i start driving them and i will put pressure on both reins and
the minute he starts to slow down in the beginning i might release the pressure horses all learn a
little differently if i'm having trouble getting him to understand that i'll actually drive him
directly at the fence and put the reins on as in stop and the minute he comes into the
fence he has to stop because he can't work any uh can't walk any further then i let go of the reins
teaching a horse to stop is actually quite a simple process but it requires us as the
rider and trainer to be patient to be kind and to be methodical in the way
that we train our horses and that is from the day dot forward so your horse never got the memo
trust me he did not get the memo that said when the rider pulls on both reins he needs to stop
so once i get in the saddle in the round yard usually on the green horse it all
starts at the beginning okay so the horse has no understanding when i'm on his back what he wants
what i want him to do so i always start with the one rein stop so remember i bend him your hand
goes to your back pocket and he should stop if he starts to move you just got to sit there and wait
for him to stop before you release the pressure sorry rebel alright so it starts at now i always
want to keep my one rein stop on my horses it has actually saved my butt so many times on young
horses from bolting or bucking or doing things that they do just because that's what a horse does
so i always want to keep my one rein stop i don't use it very often once they get a little bit
further down the track but it is there and trust me with rebel at his first couple of competitions
he got very hot and excited that there were lots of horses around him and i actually had to use my
one rein stop a couple of times in the warm up he's not feeling very excited about work today
so i'd love for you to let me know in the comments if your horse has a one rein stop
and if it doesn't are you going to go and teach it so how you teach it once that you can do it
from the standstill is i i shorten my rein and i will go like this and sit back he will stop sorry
he is trained to do this but a green horse will usually just go round around around in circles
and so you you teach that the way i showed you so with my one rein stop i'll add my voice aid in the
early days so if you're having problems stopping your horse i would start with all of this
whoa i mean i don't need to do it with rebel because he will stop good boy and then
eventually you want to drop your voice aid off and use just your rein aids
i'm also whoops i'm also adding my seat aid to the stop so if Wayne can actually zoom in here
actually i'll show you how it works here well i can just
zoom in on my just this area here you'll see that as he walks it's just going with him
if i just stop at going with him he stops no rein aid now that's taught that's a taught aid
horses didn't get that memo either okay so you have to teach them and you do it by association
so in the beginning my hips are going i use my rein aid woah voice and i stop
my pelvis following him horses are really smart they put things together so easily
use all three beginning drop one off usually your voice
and then eventually i want to use my i drop my rein aids off so that eventually it'll look like
like you just saw there just so i'll walk him up into a bit more of a contact so that you can see
he's not properly warmed up but if wayne can just stay there and i'll just stop my pelvis
and he's leaning on my rein so you just got to see what happens when he then i hope you saw that
i just closed my ring finger tightly on the rain then and set my core so he hit a brick wall
i didn't pull but when he gave it was given because he was very rude then so we'll do that
again because i don't like my horses being rude to the contact so i'll walk him on i'll
ask him it's probably a bit my that was better good boy so i closed my
outside ring finger and stopped my pelvis from moving and that got my horse to come to halt
let's see if we can do a trot he hasn't actually warmed up so you're seeing him very
bit strung out but that's okay okay so when it comes to from trot to walk i'm just going to
sit and now i'm going to stop my pelvis and he halted so all i really did then was use my seat
i didn't really use my reins but you need to do whatever you can do if your horse is taking
off on you and being unsafe that's why i have a one rein stop i'll use it as my safety brake
i try really hard not to pull on my horse's head but i am telling you if he won't stop i will do
a one rein stop it's pointless if the horse is really hard i hear people say the horse is hard
in my mouth and i can't stop him if you're pulling on the reins and he's pulling back
you're never going to win that battle you have to stop what you're doing because it's not working
and find another way to do it the other the best way to do it is teach the one rein stop and if
the horse won't listen to your normal rein aid when you're riding this one here and your body
do a one rein stop you need to explain to him this is what when i do this i actually want you to stop
the other thing i'd like to just tell you if you're working in an arena environment
or even actually out in the paddock which i've done before when they've taken off on me
if a horse won't stop circles are the way to go so down the long side you might only do like if
i've got a horse that's rushing i might only do four steps on the long side and then i turn onto
the circle line because it slows the horse down okay so if the horse is rushing smaller circles
all right if he won't go forward you actually send them off on long straight lines that all helps the
horse don't forget to check the description for my free guide to the principle three principles i use
when i train my horses it's free they're really simple and they will help you understand how
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