Bad Stops Can Be Bad For Your Health
I’ve be working really hard on the stops. Leo is just a superstar stopper from a trot now. I’m talkin’, I sit down and barely lift the reins and he tucks butt to nose. HOWEVER, at a canter…forget it! It’s like all that softness in the mouth just disappears.
So a few weeks ago, I decide to just do rundowns over and over until he decided to stop. We got through maybe four of those, when on the last one he just slammed down on all fours, mainly the front. I was sitting slightly twisted I think and MAN! It just destroyed my back. I was a hurtin’ unit for about four days. Ugh! Lesson learned.
Since that approach didn’t work, today I worked on just letting him canter for a while, but I kept him very very collected. This is one of those approachez I learned at a Vogt clinic. I attempted to stop maybe four times from a canter before I really asked for extreme collection, and all four stops were bad. He just trotted down and pulled against the bit. The last time, I had him canter the length of the arena three times and had him very collected. Then I turned him down the middle of the arena and sped up a little then sat back and said “whoa.” WOW!!!! It toooootally worked! He stooooooooooooooped! Woooohooooooo!
I had to hop off and let him be done for the day. It was so cool!
I’m a little bummed that winter is coming because I won’t have a place to really work on cantering and more speedy things. I hate that. I wish I had a big huge covered arena with the perfect dirt. Ooooh well. At least I have a great horse to ride, huh!!!
You’re getting it. I’m sure you’ve heard this somewhere before but don’t be afraid to “stair step down” when you need to.
One of the things I teach my colts is that “whoa” doesn’t mean to stop, it means “come back to me”. When I say whoa I want them thinking back up. Not stop and back up, back up while stopping. Which they of course can’t do but when they are going full out and think back up, they have to stop hard. And I want that head and neck to suck back into my hands.
I also want that head and neck to stay soft after it’s all done. No sky gazing or daydreaming once they’ve stopped. Shake their nose down and let em hold it for a few seconds.
Some horses prefer to bring their nose in toward their chest when they learn to stop. Others seem to like to root their nose out when they are stopping hard. I think you have to work with them. I prefer they bring their nose in because it looks prettier. But as long as they are soft and willing I can live with them stretching out some. But you have to be careful with them types to make sure they don’t don’t over extend and hollow out their backs. Either way, the head has to be down.
Good stops are the greatest! When he does it right, let him know!! Let him feel your excitement! He’ll get to where he can’t wait to stop good for you.
01 Oct 2008 at 6:17 am
Well this must be the time for stopping, because I worked on stopping at my last lesson too. We hadn’t really worked on it at all before & I couldn’t wait to because I knew it would be fun & it was! Doug thinks Mea is going to be a great stopper. I can always feel her wanting to when we canter & as soon as a release my legs & relax she stops, which I love. I never have to say whoa, but know I can if I need to. Our best at the lesson was about a 2 ft. slide, which is a good start, I think. The indoor where my lessons are is kinda small so you don’t have a chance to gain much speed. But he really emphasized making sure the horse is straight before asking for the stop, which is hard in that arena because you want to stop at the end to be able to build up enough speed, but then they know the turn is coming so they anticipate the turn. He also said to canter them around the arena at least a few times so they want to stop & make sure you let them rest for a while after the stop, so they really want to do it.
01 Oct 2008 at 8:10 am
Amanda, did he say how often you should practice the stop from a canter? Les says he doesn’t do that too often because it can burn them out. But I wonder how often TO do it. One of the things I noticed at the futurity was how much they actually just canter the horses around. It seems like they’d go round and round forever. I’m always wondering exactly how long to do things.
Al, Les also talks about whoa not meaning stop. I’m learning, obviously by this post, that a real WHOA STOP stop isn’t so great. I’ve been really working on the neck after the stop like you said. He does have a tendency to pull for a minute just after he stops sometimes. Then it’s like he remembers and gets back to being good.
07 Oct 2008 at 1:09 am
Great tips guys. Keep them comming.
Another stop exercise I do is trot into rollback.Trot, stop, Turn gallop out.
Mugs says hard stops can be hard on hocks and lead to lameness in reiners.
25 Dec 2008 at 9:40 pm