Category: Horse Training Tips from Professional Reining Horse Trainers

Learn training tips from some of the National Reining Horse trainers across the U.S. The sport of reining challenges the rider and the horse to be connect so completely that they perform as one. To achieve this it takes commitment and talent from both the horse and the rider.

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How to Ride Your Reining Horse Better with Sean Johnson Professional Reining Horse Trainer, Kellyville, OK

Training with Sean Johnson Kellyville, OK

Sean Johnson NRHA Professional and Irish

Sean Johnson started his riding career in the English world of three-day events. In 2001, he decided to make the change to reining to continue his career in horse training and showing. During my time at Sean’s we worked on my leg position and making my horse do more of the work. Sean believes that you should expect your horse to do their job and correct them when they make a mistake. He feels that you should not help them all the time because your horse will start to depend on you. The drawback of always helping them is when you don’t help them they fall apart. Sean says expect the horse to be good and maybe they will live up to your expectations, but if you always expect them to be bad they are still going to live up to your expectations. Taking this philosophy and incorporating it into the circle, the turnaround, and the stop was the focus of my time with Sean.

Warming up

Every day we would warm up with trotting exercises. First, we would trot a few circles in each direction. Than we would move to a long posting trot to stretch the horses shoulder. Than a trot and a long trot with the horse in a counter bend. To counter bend the horse you use the outside rein and slightly bend the neck to the outside of the circle. You want to keep the horse on the circle so you need to balance the neck with your inside rein and use your legs to keep the horse from dropping into or out of the circle.

Leg Positon

All horseback riders have heard keep your heels down from the time they start to ride. I for one have struggled with this the whole time I have been riding. Sean explained that the reason keeping my heels down was so difficult was that I was gripping too much with my upper legs. By relaxing my upper leg, I was able to push down into my heels more effectively. This correction allowed my horse to move more freely and me to connect to each stride without having to work so hard.

Circling

Sean explains that it takes another half circle before the error becomes evident. So, if your horse is not coming through center on a straight line, the error occurred half way back on the circle, not at the center. Thinking this way was a great insight into where the mistake really started and that the correction should be made back when the mistake was created and that would prevent the mistake that became evident halfway around the other side of the circle.

The goal of the reining circle is to have the horse willingly guided and if you are helping them all the time they are not willingly guided. You want the horse to do more work than you. If you want to teach the horse to lock into the circle, only correct them when they make the mistake. If they leave the circle guide their nose to the inside with your inside rein at the same time bump with your outside leg. Once they are following the circle bring your hands back to center and let the horse follow the circle. If the horse is dropping into the circle guide them to move out by opening your outside rein and bumping with your inside leg. After working on this my horse started to move more freely and was locking into the circle on his own.

Circling can become monotonous for both you and your horse. You really want them to be waiting for what comes next. A great way to do that is to add a stop and a turnaround to the outside and loping off in the opposite direction. This one exercise helps sharpen up the circles, the turnaround, the roll back, the stop, and the lead departure.

Turnaround

The turnaround requires the horse to cross their front outside leg over in front of the inside leg.  The outside shoulder cannot be pushing to the outside or the horse will not cross over well. To work on this start trotting your horse in a small circle and guide their nose by pulling your inside rein out and holding it there. Continue to trot like this until you feel your horse’s shoulder and neck commit to the circle. Once they commit to the circle open your inside leg and lay your outside rein and turnaround. While turning pull your inside rein out and kiss and release. The horse should increase in speed every time you kiss. If the horse does not increase its speed bump them in the outside shoulder and pull your inside rein out and kiss all at the same time. Do this for multiple revolutions and then trot out into the small circle and repeat the exercise. After doing this exercise in both directions and you feel the horse is crossing over well and is committed to the turnaround you can go ahead and do the turnaround maneuver in both directions.

Sean likes to start the turnaround by opening the inside leg and rein and laying the outside rein on the neck and outside leg on the body. He does not like to kiss to start the turnaround because he feels it can create a more abrupt start. Once the horse has taken three steps he kisses once for more speed and then again for each increase in speed. If the horse does not increase in speed he will bump the horse with the outside leg or both legs as well as kissing. If they speed up with every kiss, reward the effort by stopping the turnaround and let them rest.

The Run Down and Stop

When you are running down to the stop you want to have your inside leg forward and your outside leg is used to bump for more speed if the horse does not respond to the kiss.  You also want to be driving down into your heels and sit down and back in the saddle. The idea is to have your body already in the stop position and be behind the motion. Being in the stop position as you are running down allows your horse to go to the ground with their hind end and you to stay seated during the stop. When you are stopping a horse you also want to be aware of your reins. You can use them to moderate the speed if you need to but when you ask for the stop you really don’t want to pull back on the reins. Pulling back on the reins will stop the forward movement and result in a shorter stop that can be heavy on the front end.

As with everything in reining maneuver the approach to the stop is just as important as the stop itself. What we did was use the entire length of the arena as well as going around the ends. The advantage to this is you can practice speed control at the ends as well as squaring off your corners in preparation of the run down. Sean likes to practice the stop this way because it allows you to build for the stop but you are not always stopping every time. He feels that when you are sitting in stop position and squared your corner and building incrementally you are able to surprise the horse with the stop there by training the horse to stop only when asked.

While in Kellyville, OK I logged 11.5 hours of riding time toward the AQHA riding program. https://www.aqha.com/trail-riding/programs/aqha-horseback-riding-program

I hope this information helps your riding as much as it has helped me.

Feel free to share this with your friends.

Please visit Sean Johnson Performance Horses at www.johnsonreining.com

Check out more reining horse trainers by clicking this link: https://horsetaillegacy.com/063o

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How to Ride Your Reining Horse with Bobby Avila Professional Reining Horse Trainer Rogersville, MO

Training with Bobby Avila in Rogersville, MO

Bobby Avila and Irish American Quarter Horse
Bobby Avila and Irish

Training with Bobby Avila for a week we focused on how to work with an older horse. We spent our time on circles, rollbacks, turn arounds and lead changes. Bobby’s method of working with an older horse that knows how to do the maneuvers is to correct the horse when they make a bad decision and then leave them alone. You also want to teach the horse that when they make a good decision there is a reward.  That reward can come in the form of getting to rest after they do what you have asked correctly. If you discipline and older horse over and over it creates a horse that will become frustrated and angry.

Circles

Our horses are trained to be responsive to our body cues. That being said, if you ride too far ahead of your horse it becomes difficult to maintain a consistent circle. Bobby likes to spot the circle 1/8 at a time so it is easier to keep your horse on the path of the circle. An older horse knows how to stay under your hands and follow the circle, however if they make the bad decision and lean in or out of the circle Bobby likes to correct this by turning the horse sharply across the circle by picking up your hands increase forward motion and riding the horse between your hands to get back on the path of the circle. These two techniques helped my circles a great deal. It also helps reduce the need to continually pick up my hands to guide the horse to do what he already knows. The more we did this the better he stayed between my hands and on the path of the circle.

Fast Circle to Slow Circle Transitions

The transition from a fast circle to a slow circle requires rhythm. The approach was to ask the horse to increase his speed until he and I were in a comfortable rhythm and to maintain that. Once I had the rhythm, it became a matter of transitioning down by putting weight into my feet and sinking down into my saddle and maintaining the rhythm to create a smooth transition to a slow circle. The end result was a much smoother looking transition in which I was in rhythm with my horse at each speed.

Rollback

The object of the rollback is for the horse to turn inside out and lope off in the opposite direction. You must move your hands so they are creating the alley way toward the direction you want to go. For the rollback that alley way is back over the horse’s hip to complete the rollback.  At the same time, you want to move your inside leg forward to create more forward motion so the horse can extend their stride. The extended stride creates a better lead departure out of the rollback.

When Bobby is teaching a horse to rollback he lopes it across the narrow part of the pen, stops and turns around and lopes off over and over until the horse understands what is expected is a stops and turn. This will condition the horse to think, stop, and turn.  Bobby then makes the horse stop stand square and back up and then turn and lope off. At the end of the practice session he will stop and stand and then walk off. By doing this final step it will take the rollback out of the stop and communicates to the horse that they are only to turn when you ask.

Turn around

My horse likes to hang his right shoulder out in the left turn around. I have used many different exercises to improve his reach in the left turn around, but have found that he improves for a while but then he goes back to hanging his shoulder out again. Bobby’s approach was to allow the horse to correct himself. The way we did this was by placing my right leg forward so when he hangs his shoulder out he would hit my spur. The advantage of this is the horse learns to reach with his shoulder because he wants to avoid hitting the spur not because you are spurring him. Again, teaching the horse what is right and giving him the ability to make the right decision

Lead Changes in the Center

All reining patterns require a lead change in the center. We all need to practice changing leads in the center especially before a show. So how do you do this and prevent the horse from anticipating the lead change in the center. What Bobby does is to practice the lead changes in the center of the circle until he is happy with the maneuver. Then he finishes the practice with circles and no lead changes so the horse does not think circling always means change leads.

While in Rogersville, MO I logged 8.5 hours of riding time toward the AQHA riding program. https://www.aqha.com/trail-riding/programs/aqha-horseback-riding-program

I hope these tips help you work with your older horse in a way that will keep you both happy.

Feel free to share this with your friends.

For more information about Avila Performance Horses clink this link: http://www.avilaperformancehorses.net/

Check out more post by clicking on this link: https://horsetaillegacy.com/063o

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Improve Your Horseback Riding with These Tips From Buffalo Ridge Arena with Bruce Barber in Georgetown, Kentucky

Training at Buffalo Ridge Arena with Bruce Barber in Georgetown, Kentucky

child on an American Quarter HorseThis week of training was all about speed control and freeing up my horse’s movement. Taking a week and focusing on communicating with Irish in a way that he understands and responds to without picking his face up and poking him with my spur made for one happy horse. My horse Irish is a 13-year-old American Quarter Horse gelding that knows how to do all the maneuvers in a Reining pattern. He does not need to keep repeating the maneuvers, he needs to do them in a way that he is more willingly guided. Bruce believes that the best way to teach a horse is through work.  Evaluate each maneuver and see what isn’t working and break it down and work on that part. He does not believe in doing the maneuver over and over and spurring a horse that already knows his job.  Below are the exercises that we did during our week with Bruce Barber.

Speed Control

Speed control is like a dance according to Bruce.  The way to communicate with your horse to slow down, speed up or stop is with your feet and your body. To develop the speed control, we made a diamond shape pattern instead of a circle. Begin by trotting to the first point once there loping off to the next point. Once you are at that point push down in your feet and stay behind the motion to tell the horse to slow down to the trot. To get the horse to speed up in the lope move your feet front and back with the motion of the horses back feet. Doing the diamond exercise also helps straighten up a horse that is over bent in or out of the circle. Once the horse is listening to your body do the same exercise in a circle. Bruce feels that putting pressure down into your feet and staying off the horse’s back allows the horse to drop his neck and round up his back ultimately freeing up the horse to move out.

Working the poles

Bruce placed three wooden poles about five feet apart horizontally on the ground. The goal of this exercise is get the horse to move out and pick his feet up. The added benefit is to see that when the rider is sitting down on the horse’s back it blocks the horses motion. We started at the walk and walked over the poles with me sitting down. Irish hit most of the poles with his feet. We tried it again and this time I put pressure in my feet and stood up out of the saddle and gave him a loose rein and he didn’t hit a pole. For the trot, we circled around the poles and turned perpendicular to the poles and trotted over them maintaining pressure in my feet and standing up out of the saddle. Irish loved this exercise by the end he was looking at his feet and the poles and you could feel him relax.

The “U” shape pole exercise is used to see if you have control of the horse body. This was set up so you had to trot into the inside of a “U” that was about 6 x 6 feet and circle around and trot back out. Doing this will help determine if your horse pushing in or out with their head, shoulder or hip. For me, Irish was pushing out with his shoulder. Determining that he was pushing out with his shoulder led to the reverse arch exercise.

The reverse arch exercise

The goal of this exercise is to get rid of any stiffness in the shoulder by pulling the horse’s head and neck to the outside of the circle. Trot and loop circles and pull your outside rein back to arch the horse’s head to the outside of the circle. This work helps to free up the shoulder so that the horse is able stay in the tight arch needed to complete a circle in the “U” shape pole exercise.

The “X” exercise

This exercise benefits the horse’s core, lead departure, lead changes, and roll backs. In this exercise, you make two diagonal lines across the pen to form an “X”.  Starting at the trot push the horse hip over in the direction of the opposite corner you are heading to. Essentially the hip is leading while keeping the horse’s head in line with his body to form a diagonal line.  Once you reach the opposite corner release the hip and trot around the top of the pen to the next corner and trot the diagonal line pushing the horse’s hip again to the opposite corner. Once you have it at the trot do the same maneuver at the lope. At the top of the pen push down into your feet and break into the trot to the next corner and pick up the lope pushing the hip over to the opposite corner. After a few “X” patterns at the lope instead of breaking into the trot ask for the lead change at the top of the pen and proceed to the next corner.

Counter canter lead change exercise

Counter cantering a circle is a great exercise to work on the lead change. Normally a horse wants to be in the correct lead on the circle so it becomes a natural movement for them to change to the correct lead when asked. It is important to stay in rhythm with the horse and to ask for the lead change by softening the horse’s chin and changing your weight into your outside hip and step through the change by placing your outside leg on and releasing the inside leg and clucking. This allows the horse to change into the correct lead for that circle while allowing you to practice the lead change.

Leaning in or out on the circle exercise.

This exercise helps the horse learn how to stay on the circle willingly. The exercise can be done at the trot and the lope. The goal is to make the horse work when they lean. Once they understand that it is less work to stay on the circle you have taught them to be more willingly guided. As you circle you will feel when the horse is leaning as soon as you feel it stop the horse, back them up and rollback and depart. Timing the work to happen as soon as the lean occurs is important so the horse connects the work with the leaning.

While in Georgetown, KY I logged 9 hours of riding time toward the AQHA riding program. https://www.aqha.com/trail-riding/programs/aqha-horseback-riding-program

I hope you can use these exercises to make your horse more willingly guided and happy just like Irish.

For more information about Buffalo Ridge Arena by clicking this link: http://buffaloridgearena.weebly.com/

Check out more post by clicking on this link: https://horsetaillegacy.com/063o