Teaching Jet how to flex

27 Sep Teaching Jet how to flex

I teach all of my horses how to flex their head and neck to their belly. I want them to bring their nose to the area where the girth and stirrups are if they are wearing a saddle, if not then just to that area and ideally get them to touch their belly.
Why do I teach them that? Because it teaches them to give to the pressure and eventually flexing them like that will be my emergency stop when ridden.

I couldn’t tell you how many times one rein stop has saved me. Especially with young horses where every now and then something spooks them, they go into a flight mode, forget I’m on their back and start panicking. Because they all know that one rein stop means stop now I’ve been able to stop them and get them thinking again.
It’s something you have to teach your horse to do! First on the ground and then under the saddle. It’s not like you could just get on a random horse and stop them with one rein when they have a moment. You have to take the time and teach them like everything else!

In that video you can see Jet starting to learn how to flex from the ground and at the end of the video there is Jet flexing a few days later. I still want him to get a lot lighter but we can’t expect them to do things perfectly in early days.
Jet picked it up quite quickly. This is where your feel and timing have to be very good for them to understand what is asked. When I first picked up on that rope he was obviously confused and was either trying to pull against it, spin around or kept backing up. The key is to keep the pressure there and just follow them! If they want to spin around let them but don’t release that pressure! As soon as they stop moving their feet and give to the pressure you release the pressure immediately! Don’t miss that moment, it happens very quickly.
When you first pick up the rope to ask them, pick it up as light as possible, just with two fingers and if they don’t respond then add as much pressure as needed. Eventually you want them to be so light that you can’t even feel them there.
Once your horse knows how to flex, it does help in other situations as well and is not just for one rein stop.
You know when your horse is tied up and they happen to get their head under the lead rope so that it goes over their neck. There is usually lots of panicking, pulling back and just a big drama. There is nothing you can do at that moment than just wait and hope it’s not going to end with an injury.
When my horses happen to get into that situation, instead of panicking they just follow that pressure and they flex as I taught them and wait for me to go and release them.
There is a purpose for most of the exercises I teach my horses! They will help in real-life situations plus you will be earning your horses respect and trust.