Can you ride your horse on a loose rein? Walk, trot and canter without having to remind him to either slow down or speed up to keep the gait that was asked. Do you even trust your horse enough to do it?
Riding
No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle.- Winston Churchill
I start all my horses in a bitless bridle and they learn how to walk, trot, canter and stop on a loose rein. By loose rein I mean literally riding just holding the buckle. I want my horse to know all the basics and the horse to be responsible for keeping the gait that was asked without having to remind them constantly not to speed up or break the gait.
Once they are getting good at this and also know how to keep a straight line themselves then I start introducing the bit and then you can start teaching them all the fun stuff like collecting, bending, lengthening etc. Even if I’m retraining the horse I still treat them all the same and go back to basics irrespective of the horses age or experience.
In my opinion in most cases when you have problems when riding your horse it is because the horse doesn’t know the basics or just needs reminding. I always try and make it all very easy for the horse to understand.
Why would you want your horse learning how to collect, keep the gait and go on a straight line all at once. That’s when your horse starts misbehaving because they are frustrated as they don’t understand what you want from them. Make it easy for them to understand!
Also I’m sure everyone would sometimes like to go and hack out their horse on a loose rein and just enjoy the ride without having to worry about anything.
I always teach every horse an emergency stop which is a one rein stop and it works every time once your horse knows it! I need to be sure that I can stop my horse asap if something went wrong for any kind of reason.
The very first thing I teach the horse is to stand still for mounting and only moving when asked. I always find that people just seem to ignore those problems or shout at their horses to stand still and then they will try to make them stand still which most cases does not work at all.
If you have done your groundwork right you shouldn’t really have any major issues when ridden. Groundwork is the key to get your horse respectful and trust you enough so that they will be happy to work with you when you are on their back 🙂