Mix up your horse’s calisthenics for maximum results.

Varying the types of exercises you ask your horse to do will allow you to make sure he is being obedient.

By AQHA Professional Horseman Tina Kaven in The American Quarter Horse Journal

This is the third in a four-part series. Click on the link to view Part I or Part II.

Departures and Transitions

In this exercise, I mix up my departures and transitions to determine what I need to work on. Sometimes I go from a lope down to a trot. Then trot to walk. Lope to walk. Walk to lope. I vary it all up to make sure the horse is obedient to my requests.

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If the horse doesn’t do a transition correctly, I stop him, back him up and then ask again. If he does it right the next time, then I leave him alone.

At every transition, I want the shoulders up at the neck level.

In the lope departure, if the horse is broke, I leave my hand very steady. If it’s a greener horse that needs a little bit of help with lifting his shoulders, head and neck, I move my hand slightly forward and raise my wrist a bit. This is the cue that I teach my horses. When I move my hand slightly forward and bring my wrist up, this is a cue for elevation of the horse’s whole front end.

Loping Squares

In this exercise, I am basically loping a square. I lope in a straight line, stop, push the shoulder around to make the turn and then lope off again.

When I cue the horse to lope, my body is in a normal riding position with a relaxed leg. But when I go to make the turn, because I am moving the shoulders, my legs come forward, with my outside leg of the square a little more forward than the inside leg.

After I move the shoulders over, I might ask the horse in this particular exercise to lope off a little more through the shoulders and with my leg a bit more forward.

Also, I sometimes throw in turns on the hindquarter or forehand, depending on what I think the horse needs and the placement of his body.

What I am working on with this exercise is the straightness of the horse and keeping the horse from getting over canted. I want to prevent that.

Stay tuned next week for Part IV of the series.

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Related Posts:

• Western Pleasure Calisthenics: Part I
• Western Pleasure Calisthenics: Part IV
• Riding Back to Front, Part III
• Western Pleasure Calisthenics: Part II
• Lope Departures