by: Wendy Weichel
The process for teaching your horse to finish their turn-around can be broken down into four steps.
If you followed the steps to start to teach a turn-around, which I provided in my previous article (October 2005), these next four steps should come easily and you should be well on your way to a fluent and fast turn-around.
Once your horse is turning consistently from your inside rein, it is time to introduce the first step in helping your horse finish his turn-around, which is to have him learn to move off of outside rein and leg pressure.
Start by walking your horse in a small circle approximately 10 ft. in diameter in the same direction as your intended turn-around. As you walk the circle keep the horses shoulders, rib cage, and hips in a straight line rather than allowing their body to arch around the circle.
Bring your outside rein to your horse’s neck. It is important not to let your rein cross over your horse’s withers as you want him to learn to respond to very light pressure and not develop the tendency to push into the pressure.
At the same time as you apply your outside rein, apply very light pressure with your outside leg right at the cinch. The proper leg and hand positioning are very crucial at this stage as you want them to be distinct from any other cue you teach your horse.
Positioning your outside leg right at the cinch will help your horse understand that you want him to move his ribcage and shoulders. If you apply leg pressure too far back, your horse will want to respond by moving his hip, which is the exact opposite of what you want.
Let me walk you through a turn to the left building upon what I have just told you.
Once you have correctly applied pressure with both your right rein and leg, the horse should respond by moving his shoulders to the left. At these early stages, only ask for a step or two to the left, and then encourage forward motion.
If your horse gets counter-bent while turning, assist him by bringing your inside hand slightly to the side to guide his nose in the direction you want to go. Avoid tipping his nose so much that his outside shoulder falls out.
At this point, your circle will be more of a stop sign shape than a round circle. Continue doing these circles until he is consistently moving his shoulders to the inside of the circle all the while keeping them square and elevated. The inside shoulder should not be allowed to drop in.
Once your horse is moving off your rein and leg pressure, it’s time to introduce the second step in the natural progression towards finishing the turn-around. This second step is just simply allowing your horse to turn.
If your horse is responding correctly to the cues you have presented to him up until this point, he should want to turn on his own naturally. Again, start by walking in a circle and applying your outside rein and leg cues.
When you feel your horse hesitate – as if he wants to step into the turn – allow him to follow through with that step. At this point, not only is it important to remember to continue to maintain a very light outside rein pressure on his neck, but to also maintain outside leg pressure on your horse’s side.
Maintaining light leg pressure on your horse during the turn will cause your horse to become comfortable with that leg being there, which will benefit you later if you need to increase that leg pressure to straighten him out.
Eventually, you will not need to support your horse with that outside leg cue so much and will only need to apply it to correct their body position.
While in the turn, only allow your horse to take three or four steps and then ease him out of the turn, having him walk forward a few steps before easing him into a circle again. This will keep your horse thinking about moving forward and prevent him from stalling, and starting to want to rock his body position too far back. Having him walk forward will also keep him from wanting to push against your leg cue.
Now, as your horse begins to move easily off of your rein and leg cue, it is important that you slowly remove your outside leg pressure and assume a more neutral rein position.
A neutral rein position is achieved by slowly bringing your hands back to centre, which on your horse is in front of your pommel and on either side of their neck.
If you feel your horse begin to push against your outside leg, increase your leg pressure while simultaneously closing your fingers to prevent him from wanting to walk forward and out of the turn in response to the increased pressure.
He will eventually learn to associate the increased pressure as a cue to straighten out his ribcage and elevate his outside shoulder, rather than something that causes him to panic and want to walk forward or pick up speed.
Be very consistent in not allowing your horse to push on your outside leg and bend his body in the direction of the turn while executing his turn. If you do feel him pushing, pull your outside rein away from his neck and increase that outside leg pressure to make him straighten out his ribcage.
Resist the temptation to increase your pressure on the outside rein because the push is coming from his ribcage and not from his neck or shoulders. Increasing your outside rein pressure now would give him even more to push on.
When you feel your horse is turning four or more steps comfortably and correctly, it is time to ask for a full turn. Now that you are asking your horse for even more steps, you will start to feel natural speed increments.
This occurs due to the fact that your horse’s body is now properly positioned allowing his inside front foot to reach freely to the side. This naturally builds propulsion in the turn. As long as your horse maintains the correct body and foot placement, let that natural speed build.
Once your horse has executed the turn correctly and picked up some speed, introduce step three, which consists of telling him “Whoa” and asking him to stop.
Rewarding your horse by allowing him to rest after he has turned correctly and more quickly, but before he naturally wants to stop on his own, accomplishes two things. Firstly, you are teaching him to “shut off.” Secondly, rewarding him now will cause him to want to hunt for that speed and enable you to prevent that “winding down” sensation you want to avoid in the turn-around.
The final step in helping to teach your horse to finish his turn-around is to incorporate the “cluck.” Use the cluck when you want to add speed.
Clucking as the horse steps with his inside front leg will help him establish and maintain cadence and rhythm. If your horse does not respond to the cluck, back up your cue for more speed with your outside leg. If you don’t immediately go to your leg cue as reinforcement, your horse will eventually become unresponsive to your cluck.
Make that cluck mean something and if that means having to reinforce it by rolling your spur up his side at the cinch, do it. As is the foundation of any horse training, make sure you ask your horse for speed first by clucking and then, if need be, follow up with outside leg pressure, resorting to rolling your spur only if he doesn’t respond from your initial leg pressure.
If he still doesn’t respond, even after following this natural progression in the application of your cues, you may have to kick him as a last resort.
However, rolling your spur on his side is still the more effective cue as it starts as a constant pressure, which then increases by the rolling action of the spur. The rolling action of your spur also causes him to want to elevate his ribcage and encourages him to stay off the pressure.
Kicking isn’t as effective because it usually startles the horse somewhat and causes him to jump rather than encouraging a nice fluid step to the inside of the turn and will tend to cause your horse to become somewhat nervous of your leg.
And remember, once your horse does give you the response you are looking for, quit applying your leg and just let him turn.
Now that I have presented the four steps I follow to teach my horses to finish their turn-arounds, I hope I have provided you with all the building blocks you need to help you and your horse achieve a turn-around that is fast, fluent, and solid for many years to come. More importantly, these techniques result in a horse that willingly turns with ease and enthusiasm.
Wendy Weichel has been training reining and all-around horses for 11 years and runs her business out of Okotoks, AB. Please feel free to contact Wendy to see if her program will help you achieve your goals. She can be reached at (403) 652-1325 (home), (403) 601-0913 (cell), or by email at wendy spinin_slidin@yahoo.com.
