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Mar. 17, 2009
Gaits
This is out of a book that I just checked out at the library today. Here is some good....just basic stuff that a lot of books don't cover. All of this is for English style riding. See the bottom of the post for some differences between Western and English.
-Sarah-
Horses move at different paces called gaits. Walking, trotting, cantering, and galloping are common gaits. Switching form one gait to another is called a transition. A rider uses aids to signal the horse to make a transition.
Trotting Away
A trot is a slow, bouncy gait. Tog go from a walk to a trot, squeeze the horse's sides with your legs. You may have to tap the horse gently with your heels to encourage it to move. Riders post, or rise themselves up and down, as their horse trots. The rider gos up on the first beat of the trot and down on the second.
Trot to Canter
The canter is a fast, bounding pace. The horse starts a canter with its back leg. You must signal to the horse to let it know with which back leg to strike off, or take the first step into the canter. Keep your inside leg at the girth of the saddle and squeeze your opposite leg behind the girth. Gently put pressure on the inside rein and then release it as soon as the horse begins to canter.
The Gallop
The gallop is a horse's fastest gait. The horse stretches out all its legs in a running stride. To make the transition from a canter to a gallop, squeeze the horse's sides with the lower part of your legs. During a gallop, sit in the forward seat position. To sit in the forward seat position, bring your seat out of the saddle, bend forward slightly at the waist, and keep your balance over the center of the horse. Let your hands allow the motion of the horse's neck to move freely.
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The most obvious difference between "English" and western is that the reins are held in one hand only, at least with mature horses. Horse show rules offer classes for junior horses in which they may be ridden with two hands, but the finished western horse is ridden with just one hand on the reins. Show rules also request the reins to be held in such a way that not more than one finger is between the reins. Good western horses are also ridden with slack in the reins - you just can't impress a judge riding a tight rein. This calls for a training program designed to work more on your horse's mind than on his mouth.
A common mistake would-be western riders make is pitching the horse the slack. This can work if you just amble through the countryside, not wanting to bother your horse much, and that's most likely how the slack-rein style developed. However, to execute precisely sophisticated maneuvers, it just doesn't work. You'll have to ride your horse according to the age-old principles of dressage, which means you need to ride him from the rear forward, push him into the bridle, and have him give to your hand. That way, the horse is providing himself the slack by tucking in his chin. Only you need him so light on your hands that he'll do that long before your reins actually make contact. The weight of the rein is felt by a horse in his mouth long before it forms a straight line between your hand and the horse's mouth - if he's been trained to be that sensitive! And if your horse works on a really slack rein, he is even working on a "mental rein". He is tuned to where he respects a rein that exists mainly in his memory.
Leg cues are largely the same as in "English", but a good rider/horse team needs less of it. Normally, the western rider doesn't use the legs just to maintain a gait. Weight cues are applied differently by most top western trainers, though. The western dressage horse (reining horse) is taught to move away from pressure, including weight. This means that the rider's weight is rather on the outside of the horse in a turn-around or a circle, pushing the horse in. If it's a well-tuned team, the rider would be sitting pretty much in the middle, but the principle of steering is one of pushing/driving the horse into the direction it is supposed to go, in contrast to putting your weight there and expect the horse to follow (move underneath it).
One could express it by saying the rider is behind the horse, not leading the horse. There are exceptions, as there is no universally accepted western riding doctrine; in the final analysis, everything goes that works. No judge will mark you down because he disagreed with your cues - he'll mark you down if your cues were too obvious for his taste, or, more important, if the execution of the required maneuvers were substandard.
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About Me
Hi my name is Sarah. I am 16 years old and love horses. I don't have any horses but like to study and ride them! All of the entries on my blog are things I have read in books or magazines. I hope you enjoy all the information!
I have also published a book during the 2009 school year, "Skylark." Here is the blog to see more about it!
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Skylark/
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