When a horse isn't truly soft or broke through the body, effective troubleshooting becomes nearly impossible. Cherry-picking exercises like yielding the hindquarters, to suit an immediate need in a maneuver that's falling apart, will only lead to more trouble and expose the holes in your horse's foundation. We discuss this pitfall many riders find themselves in, and continue our Advanced Stopping series with tips for introducing a light draw on the reins during the stop.

On a young or inexperienced horse, we introduce rundowns in a methodical way that builds the horse's confidence. Expanding on the preparatory work we've done with stopping off the word "whoa" and a light draw on the reins, we'll begin using transitions to build habits of softness and responsiveness during the rundown phase itself.

Watching how the world’s best horses and riders operate can dramatically shift your perspective. In this episode we break down a rare opportunity we had to observe a world-class stallion’s transition between two vastly different programs, and the areas of added emphasis or refinement he needed to become a great reining horse.

You’ve got the horse committed to stopping on “whoa” and dragging his ass both on and off the fence. Now it’s time to boost his confidence further by adding some speed. In this episode we discuss the transitional phase between a ‘Skills & Drills’ mindset and a ‘Maneuver’ mindset. Once the horse’s confidence at speed is built up, we can finally start drawing him into the ground for real; working on rundowns and stops specifically. Prior to the Advanced Horsemanship 101 segment, we address concerns about headset and offer our philosophy on head carriage and collection issues.

It’s important that a horse’s first experience with the saddle goes well. Recently we brought a 3-year-old with a serious bucking habit into our program. Using this horse’s example to provide context, we discuss our views on saddling colts; how we avoid creating bad habits with the saddle, and how we’re fixing the consequences of a saddling process gone wrong. We also continue our Advanced Horsemanship 101 series on stops; detailing additional drills to get the horse stopping well off the fence and prepare him for a true sliding stop.

[Colt Starting] Why it’s important to lope young horses a lot and get them moving out consistently under saddle, and what to do if your horse is getting lazy, sluggish, pissy or resentful when asked to hustle their feet.

We provide solutions for dealing with an aggressive horse beating up his herd-mates in the pasture, and what to do if your horse becomes aggressive or dominant toward nearby horses under saddle. Then in our Advanced Horsemanship 101 segment, we discuss using rollbacks on the fence to teach the horse to stop on “Whoa” and engage his hind end. We highlight the reasons why the turnaround – not the backup – is your best asset when teaching a horse to fully commit to the stop.

The One Rein Stop is a simple foundational exercise. Why do some horse owners misunderstand its purpose and take it wildly out of context? Because they're teaching it with the wrong goals in mind. And that's not their fault, either!

In this podcast Xtra we provide a definite explanation of the One Rein Stop; its practical purpose and where it factors in to a horse's overall progression. We explain why it's only effective in certain contexts at a specific stage of a horse's training, and why it gets misapplied so often.

We discuss potential causes of cinchy behavior when saddling a horse, and how to address them. We also preface our upcoming Horsemanship 101 series on stops and backups, by highlighting the importance of moving beyond the one rein stop. We recount our own experiences as novice horsemen, and our misconceptions about what a true stop is, and how our mindset has evolved.

Control breeds confidence, and confidence breeds success with horses. In this Podcast Xtra, we lay out our philosophy on confidence clinics, becoming a more capable rider, and why we center our clinics on exercises that give participants more control of their horses.