 |
Re: [RC] one rein stops.... - Karen L.mkrumlaw@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
When my horse decides to act up, he flexes his neck, puts his chin on his chest and gets behind the bit. I clearly need to practice the one rein stop. However, something that has been completely effective for me in all circumstances of this type so far is to just yell, in a very commanding and deep voice, STOP!!!. It works great, and my horse starts behaving immediately. I can't take credit for this, since I did not break him -I got my gelding as a 3.5 year old and he was already under saddle. Clearly, his original trainer did a great job with his ground training. This has worked in some pretty scary situations, such as on an LD ride where I was riding my horse through a narrow gate near a firing range where people were shooting, a car was driving quite close behind me and the horse in front of me took off at a gallop - all at the same time. My poor horse lost it and tried to take off. Pulling on the reins had no effect since he already had his chin on his chest. I couldn't use lateral flexion since I was surrounded by obstacles. I yelled STOP so loud that the guy on the horse who was galloping away from me thought I was yelling at him and stopped his horse for a second! Anyway, my gelding stopped the bad behavior immediately and then settled right down. I will say this doesn't work when my horse does his famous drop shoulder, reverse/spin spook since I am usually on the ground before I have a chance to yell. Thank goodness he is growing out of that!
Does anybody else use this STOP technique?
Karen
Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
|