From: Dan
Dear Jessica:
As many of your readers have already expressed, thank you so much for providing such an invaluable service in the form of "Horse Sense".
Over the past 1-2 months, I have been having a variety of loping problems with Sire, a 9-year old Quarter Horse gelding I've been half-leasing for the past 8 months. I have been taking Western Riding lessons for about 1 1/2 years now. Formerly a school horse, Sire is now only regularly ridden by two riders...the owner of the stable and myself.
Lately, Sire has been "playing" with me (I believe). Loping him has been become a difficult experience. Sire won't begin the lope properly... instead electing to buck, pin his ears, turn his head to the outside and fall into a bone-jarring trot. Then, if and when I finally get him to lope (after numerous tries at returning him to a balanced trot and then giving lope cues again), he often won't maintain the lope for very long (despite urging seat and strong leg aids)...returning to a trot when he wants to. I don't believe his reaction is caused by pain, as he does not act this way when my instructor rides him. As you might imagine, this entire experience has made me more tentative about loping him. The frustrating thing is that he used to lope wonderfully with me...but now something has changed.
Sorry for being so long-winded. Whatever advice you could provide would be greatly appreciated.
Best,
Dan
If you and your instructor ride in different saddles, then it would be a good idea for you to have your instructor ride in your saddle, and for you to ride in your instructor's saddle, just to see what happens. The same gait performed under two different saddles can cause two very different sensations in the same horse, just as you might find it easier to go jogging in ONE pair of shoes, and more difficult or downright painful in ANOTHER pair. I frequently see lope problems arise when a horse is ridden in a saddle with skirts that are too long, and that dig into the croup or hip. No horse will be happy about picking up a lope if he knows that each stride will cause pain.
If the saddle is the same one, then you'll need to look into differences of pads and positioning. Again like a pair of shoes, one saddle can be quite comfortable with a particular pad and when placed in a particular location on the horse's back, but the same saddle might cause pain if positioned differently.
If the saddle, pads, and position are identical, then it's time to look at -- you guessed it -- the rider. ;-) Riders are NOT identical, and you may be doing something that makes your horse prefer not to lope when you are on board. I'll make a number of suggestions, some of which MAY apply to you. ;-)
If you lean forward when you ask for the lope, you may be making it difficult for the horse to strike off, and you may be causing the saddle to dig into his shoulders. Sitting up straight will solve this.
If you are trying to push with your hips and seat to force the horse into a lope, or to force him into continuing the lope, those actions may be rocking the saddle on his back in a way that hurts him when he lopes. Sitting STILL and allowing the saddle to move your lower back -- instead of trying to use your back to move the saddle -- will solve this.
If you are using strong, continuous leg-squeezing to keep your horse loping, you are getting in his way. Gripping and squeezing with the legs will make your body rigid, unable to move with the horse, and the horse's natural (and sensible) reaction will be to jog instead. The solution for this is to return to a single ask-and-wait policy, or a cue-and-relax one. ASK the horse to lope, then wait and allow him to do what you've asked. If he doesn't respond, ask again in the same way, don't change your upright, balanced position, and reinforce your cue with a single whack from a loud "popper" somewhere behind the saddle. By constantly squeezing, you not only make it difficult for the horse to lope at all, you remove his reason for doing it. Look at the situation from the horse's point of view: he's been taught to respons to cues, so he understands that you'll give a cue, he will do whatever it is (if he can, and if it doesn't hurt), and then you will take away the cue to say "Yes, thank you Horse, that was what I wanted." From your horse's point of view, you don't want a lope -- if that was what you wanted, you would stop asking when he began to do it, so the fact that you are still asking him for SOMETHING means that the something you wanted couldn't have been the lope -- but he doesn't know what you DO want. At this point, 99 out of 100 horses will either jog or buck in sheer frustration.
One more possibility: if you are apprehensive about loping, and worry that the horse will buck as you ask for the lope, you probably lean or curl your body forward whilst bringing your rein hand back toward your stomach, thus tightening your reins instead of loosening them. This tells the horse "DON'T LOPE -- BUT DO SOMETHING NOW!!!!" Since you clearly want him to do SOMETHING, he'll buck once (a natural reaction to being sent forward and held back simultaneously), then go into a fast trot (a natural reaction to being told to go forward but without the freedom to reach with his head and neck, as he needs to do at the lope.
With your instructor watching you, practice asking for the lope quietly, cue-and-relax, then cue-and-pop-and-relax if he doesn't respond to cue-and-relax. When you ask, sit up straight and push your rein hand FORWARD to give him more rein. Don't worry -- holding the rein tightly will cause, not prevent, a buck. You need to tell the horse "I'd like you to lope, that is lope NOW, and I'm setting it up to make it very easy for you." If he does throw in that single buck, you'll ride it better if you're sitting tall. ;-)
Once you get the lope, sit up, let your lower back just move softly with the saddle, keep your rein hand forward, and TALK to the horse. Tell him what he's doing and what a good boy he is for doing it. Horses have to know when they've done what we want, or they'll just do something else and then something else again, until we let them know that they've done what we wanted.
Maybe some of this applies to you and your horse -- maybe not. But if you're sure that the horse is sound and has no back bruising, iand if you can be certain that the tack isn't a factor, and that the ONLY variable in the picture is the particular human in the saddle, then these are the most likely, common problems and their solutions.
Good luck, and let me know what happens.
Jessica
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