by: Nicole Brown
It is a “must back, now” response called “get back” that I feel is crucial in developing a great stop. In my program, it is imperative that a horse feels a “sense of urgency” to get back. This means he must be willing to respond immediately to the signal by rocking back over his hind end and stepping quickly back.
Most importantly he must back up with clean steps and in the correct frame, as frame in the back-up directly relates to the frame in the stop. Unfortunately, this is not a precise step-by-step process. Sometimes, the steps overlap each other to compensate for the horse’s response.
This article will be written as applied to a horse that has some idea that he should stop and has a little bit of give in his chin. On my colts, this usually begins to fit in the first or second month of training, depending on how quickly the colt has picked up the basic ideas of going, stopping, steering, and giving his chin.
I will at first use the word “whoa” with this procedure. From a walk, I push down on my stirrups (I do not overly exaggerate my body position as I want my colts to learn to pay attention to more subtle cues), say “whoa,” and pick up on the reins. If he stops, good.
I keep contact and use my legs one at a time to bump his belly until he steps back. If he does not stop, I increase rein pressure so that he knows I’m serious. Then, when he nears a stop I start to use my legs (always one at a time), to encourage him to keep his feet moving, but change their direction.
With the colt that will stop I start to do this as well, but I will be slightly more lenient with how aggressively I use my legs. The poorer the response from the colt, the more I will not pull him back, but prevent him from going forward, and the stronger I will be with my legs.
When he steps back, good, I release. As this becomes ritual for the colt I will move up to a trot and then the lope. When the colt has figured this out at all the gaits, I will increase the level of difficulty.
My first increase in difficulty is eliminating the word “whoa.” Everything else remains the same. I adjust my body position and pick up the reins with a slight pull, now without saying the word.
Once this is in place in my colt’s mind at the walk, trot, and lope, I increase the level of difficulty again, this time striving for an improvement in the quality of the response.
The first improvement in quality that I want is to eliminate hesitation, meaning I do not want a delay between the stop and the back up. I start this from a stand still.
I position myself, and then pick up and pull three or four inches beyond the point of contact. Chances are, my colt will either pull back or give his chin, but not move. The correct response would be to move his feet back immediately.
Now I kick him alternately – according to which foot should move – until he steps, good, then release. Pause, repeat-position, pull, kick until he moves back, and release. From the stand still, this process usually only takes a couple of rides to become habit for the colt.
As a guide, when doing this at a walk, if his left front foot is in mid stride moving forward and I pull on the reins that left front foot should start moving backward in mid flight. The same does not quite apply at the trot and lope. Allow a couple of weeks to develop this fully at the walk, trot, and then lope.
Now, to complicate things I will start to mind his frame as a second improvement in quality. First and foremost, my colt needs to go forward and then go backward with no delay. Secondly he needs to do it “pretty.”
This is where steps will overlap a little more. If I pick up the reins and he moves back, but gives no chin, I will work his jaw a little to encourage the chin to come back at the same time as the feet.
I can also target this by picking up the reins, bumping my legs until the chin drops, and then increasing my pull slightly as I push on the stirrups and use my feet to indicate that he should move back. I will pause only if his face has offended me and needs to be repositioned before backing, otherwise he must back immediately.
Now, I am in for a couple of weeks of playing around developing a soft, responsive, and aggressive stop. The aggressive part winds in as I begin to expect a quicker, stronger back-up. The soft part develops as I use my feet to pick up the back as the chin drops and the backward motion begins. And the responsive part is what has been developing from the start. As the back up becomes better, so does the stop.
I do most of these exercises on a circle or just riding around. I will change it sometimes and ride about five ft. off the wall, back up, turn, trot the other way, and repeat. As my colt progresses, I can start to change my focus from function more towards “pretty,” and then eventually increase difficulty again with a little more speed.
It is important to remember that a horse needs to be pushed slightly beyond his comfort zone to improve, but not beyond his level of comprehension. Most often, if you ask a horse consistently and in such a way that he can figure out how to obtain a release, he will become more willing to participate. It seems when a horse can see “no way out” he becomes cranky and difficult to progress. A lot of times as riders we must remember to step back once in a while and make sure we are communicating something that our horse can figure out.
Nicole Brown owns and operates Reiner-Nic Performance Horses out of Tofield, AB. Although she focuses on training and showing reining horses, three top-ten 50/50 horses have also passed through the barn, not to mention her retired reiner who puts in the occasional appearance at a barrel race, and future plans to break onto the working cowhorse scene.
Nicole relocated to Alberta in 2002 while showing Docs Badger Dude and in 2004 won her first World Championship in freestyle reining with a partial bridleless run on the three-year-old stallion Ima Docs High Sign (Ima Doc Olena x Ima Natural High) owned by Bill Cookshaw and Marie Rowe of Cee Arr Appaloosas in Dewinton, AB.
