Ride and Slide (training Tips)

Fencing - I remember back to my early teenager years when I first saw people fencing their horses at horse shows. I just showed in the all around classes, ( Pretty much every class on the same horse. That is how it was back then.)

I would watch people run their horses up and down the pen into the fence.  Naïve as I was, thought I was pretty good getting my horse to stop without running it into the fence. 

Not that my horse really stopped in the reining sense of the word.  Once I started to do reining on a reining horse, I realized fencing is not about teaching my horse to stop but to run.  The better a horse is running down the arena the better they are able to stop. 

Therefore controlling the rundown is very important in producing the best stop for our horse.  A good rundown consists of the horse accelerating all the way down the pen with long reaching strides all the way to the stop.  Any shortening of the stride or slowing in the approach to the stop will affect its execution.  We want our rundowns to be straight and controlled.  The horse should accelerate when we tell it to and how much. 

A horse that wont accerate enough will be on its front end in
the approach and will stop poorly.  Horses that accelerate too much show a lack of control and your maneuver score will be affected, as long with potentially the quality or consistency of the stop.

If we always run our horses down and stop them in a similar place down the arena they will start to anticipate it and slow down when approaching that place.  That is why we fence our horses.  It is a tool we use to teach our horse to run well through the stopping zones (common places we stop) and in addition teach him to run well to a place he knows he is going to stop, ie the fence.

Before we start fencing.

When I am teaching a young horse to stop I don’t fence him. Before I introduce a horse to fencing I have already established a sliding stop on the horse.  Whilst running rectangles or just simply going in a  straight line down the arena I can either say whoa or draw him into the ground and he will slide to a stop.  I like my horses pretty broke in general before I start working on fencing.  I want to be able to do a good lead departure, be able to speed them up and slow them down on a circle so I have control of their speed, be able to guide them all over the arena, be able to back up,  sidepass and generally move the body around and have them soft in the face while doing all of these.  These are my tools.  When one part of the rundown is not how I like it I will use these tools to make corrections.  That way the horse already understands what the correction means.  If one of my tools quits working I will stop fencing, fix the tool and then go back to fencing and reapply the tool.  I don’t want to introduce any tools the horse doesn’t already understand while fencing.  His focus will then go onto what the tool means and off the fencing and what we are trying to achieve.

Rider Body Position

When running to a stop the rider should lean slightly back, have their legs out in front of them and generally be in the position they need to be in while stopping the horse.  When it is time to stop all the rider should have to do is quite riding, maybe push in the stirrups a little more and say the magical word.  If you are sitting too upright in the approach to the stop and have to make a large body movement in order to stop the horse will feel that and slow or check their stride, affecting the stop.  We also don’t want to be kicking our horse all the way down the pen.  The horse should run free but at the desired speed.

Going Straight

If we lope off from the end fence, 50 feet from the side of the arena, we should end up at the other end fence 50 feet from the side of the arena.  We really want to try to keep running up and down the arena as simple as possible.  When we go show there is already a lot of things to think about without complicating it further by extra things we need to do to get the performance out of our horse.  Therefore I don’t want to have to guide my horse while running down the pen.  I should be able to lope off, put my hand in the middle of his neck and he should go in a straight line down the arena.  I don’t want to have to guide him to keep him on a straight line.  How we achieve that is by loping off and putting our hand in the middle of his neck and expecting him to do it.  We have to let out horses make mistakes for them to learn.  We cannot be their crutch.  If while going down the arena the horse veers left I will guide him right, if he veer right, I will guide him left.  The amount I guide him will depend on the amount he veers.  Usually I will steer them an equal amount in the opposite direction and keep going to the end fence.  If I have to make a large correction I may end up facing the side fence, but that is ok.  The important thing is that any action that they decide to do without direction from me is the wrong one so they are just better off waiting for me or they will end up doing more work.  The horse needs to be able to go straight down the pen before we can add speed.  If you add speed before you have your horse going straight it will magnify their mistakes.  When we redirect our horse he needs to maintain the same lead.

Adding Speed

Once we can lope straight down the arena we can add more speed.  If I lope off from the end fence and my horse is with me I will ask it for another gear.  If it builds and stays with me I may ask for another gear.  If the horse is not with me or soft in body and mind I will not go faster until I they are so.  If a horse gives me too much speed  I will pick up my hands and slow them to the speed I wanted.  If they resist this I will pick up more and slow them down further, softening the face as I do so.  If they resist this I will draw them in the ground and back them up.  In all these cases I make sure he is doing what I want softly before I go back to fencing.  Sometimes I will bridle my horse up going up and down the arena and sometimes I wont.  I want him comfortable in either case as long as any time I pick up my hands it is met with a receptive mindset.

Nose on the fence or not?

Now there may be varying opinions on this but for me I don’t expect them to stop with their nose on the fence. Some horses will, some will not want to.  Those that don’t want to I will often compromise a little for a start and if we are ten feet of the fence that is ok.  The important thing for me is that they run well through their stopping zone and even though stopped slightly off the fence ran all the way to that point.  Often these horses lack confidence.  Usually I find with time they will get closer and closer to the fence.  If I make an issue out of it and put more pressure on them to be right at the fence makes a uncomfortable place for them even more so.  The important factor is that they run good all the way to the point they stop.

Variation

I do not always run my horse down the arena as fast as I can.  Sometimes I will begin like I am going to run fast then at a random point slow them down to make sure my horse is with me.  He should do this relaxed and soft.  If my horse is running good I may ask him to stop to see if he is listening.  Sometimes I may just draw him in the ground without saying whoa to make sure he is listening to all cues.  I may stop my horse a couple of times in a row and then try to fence him and see if he anticipates the stop.  Variation keeps your horse listening to you and not on autopilot.  Sometimes my variation is initiated by what my horse does and sometimes just because I felt like it.

Saying the word

Generally I do not say whoa when going into the fence.  I wont say never as I have had a couple of horses that I did say whoa to going into the fence otherwise they would not stop.  Most figure out there is fence there.

If you keep in mind that a good rundown produces a good stop and that is the focus of fencing, then you will have a lot more fun riding and showing your horse.  So until next month, ride, fence, slide and have fun.