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My horse has a very fast lope. In the roundpen she is okay but since we have no arena she gets a little overboard when we go to the fairgrounds. Any suggestions on how to slow her down or collect her more? She has a nice jog, smooth and slow. I tried letting her run it out, but she can go a good 30 mins without calming down
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Average Member
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| I'm supposing you've already dutifully ruled out all 'maybe' pain on the horse's part, yes? - Ask for the lope like normal, using your body to keep her wanting to go forward. - At the same time (keeping her going with your body), draw her in with the reins a bit, and use your legs if she slows down too much. I say 'use your legs' but you can use whatever she responds to (mouth, tilt of body, legs, etc). - Ask her with your body, but keep her BALANCED and CONTROLLED in her mouth. Now, don't pull on her, just keep a steady amount of contact so you have it if you need it. I had the same problem with Cody and used this method and he's good. Hope it works for your horse. Are you using a curb? If so, you shouldn't be tugging and pulling on your horse. You shouldn't anyway, but be extra careful.
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Average Member
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You may also want to lunge her to get all the nerves out before you get on a 1000 pounds of nervous mess. I don't know what state she's in, but she sounds hyper.
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I would do lots of trot-lope and lope-trot transitions. Just lope a few strides and bring her back to a trot, then a jog. Act like it's no big deal. If you keep her focused on transitions she will be less likely to think about going fast, and it also helps a horse to balance. Sunny gave good suggestions too, especially about balancing. Good luck!
 
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I agree that you should be sure to rule out a pain issue first. With some saddle fit problems especially, the horse may only "act up" in canter because it's an asymmetrical gait and certain muscles that get different use and different amounts of pressure from the tack in canter.
However, saddle fit isn't an issue, and if she picks up both leads equally well, then it's safe to assume it's a training problem. Since she's not fussy or fast in her other gaits, my preferred technique is to spiral the horse down. Meaning, pick up your lope on a large circle rather than on the rail. It's best to work in a snaffle for this. Keep her on the circle once or twice around, keep your legs gently on her sides and squeeze your outside rein every few strides. This will cause her to rebalance by shifting some of her weight back over her haunches. She may not respond well at first, but keep trying and praise her when you get even a slight reaction. After one or two times around the big circle, slowly begin to spiral her towards the inside of the circle. Depending on the size of the circle you started with, it may take you 10-15 time around to spiral her down to the point where she wants to break down into a trot. The trick is to go VERY gradually, and be squeezing your outside rein every few strides the whole time. When you get to where she wants to break gait, calmly ask her to trot before she does so on her own, and continue forward from that point by bending her to the inside and then asking her to walk. Keep her walking in the little circle until she softens to your hand/the bit. Then let her go and walk calmly forward.
Do that once or twice on each lead. Once she's able to lope calmly on both the big circles, and the smaller circles,then you can go on to other exercises in lope safely because what this exercise teaches the horse is to 1. wait for your cues 2. stay balanced over her hocks, rather than trying to use momentum (speed) to feel balanced 3. teaches her to be calm during and after loping.
good luck
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| I have had this same problem... and just starting to fix it with my mare! Very stressful situation, isn't it? What I have found that is starting to work with April (my horsie) is everytime she goes faster then I want, I stop her and back her up. Once she stops and is done backing up, she needs to stop until I tell her to go again. If she takes a step forward without me asking her to, she gets to back another 3 steps. You have to be really firm on this rule though, don't ever let him/her get away with it, be firm and repetitive. So lets say you ask for a lope, and you want a nice collected feel, but then he speeds up. You don't want that, so you stop him, and back him up. (usually about 5 steps.) then, he needs to wait for your command to go forward again, but if he doesn't wait for that command, back him up another 3 steps, and keep doing this until he stands still till you say it's time to go forward! Or you can do it the other way (if he doesn't like to stop or back much) where if he goes faster then you want him to, do the "emergency" stop by pulling him in a tight circle. I really do not recommend this way, just as it can sometimes be dangerous for both horse and rider if you are at a fast speed. hope this helps :)
April and Alyssa :) Barrel Racers :D
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