How to Stop & Move Backward from a Trot on a Horse

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Kelli on behalf of Expert Village, I'm going to show you some tips and techniques that I use when I'm trotting and jogging my horse. So now that we have our horse walking and trotting, we want to make sure that we know how to stop our horse. So stopping for the trot, let me move up to a trot here. We are going to be trotting looking where we want to go. When we decided that we are ready to stop we are going to sit, pull back slightly on the reins and say whoa if we have to. Once you sit deep and see smoothness with your horse, that is a cue that you no longer want your horse to go forward. So again you are going to sit deep, pull back slightly on the reins, say whoa if you need to. Once you get your horse to stop when you want them to back, you are just going to pull back, apply a little bit of calf pressure and get them to step backwards. You might find that this is not the easiest if your horse is not trained back very well. So you may have to find that you have to pull a lot harder in the beginning. But to give your horse pretty easy for small rewards so if you get one step, give them a pat say good job. You did what I wanted you to do. So again when you stop, you are going to sit deep, say whoa, pull back really slightly. You go to back, you just going to pull back gently on your reins, apply a little bit of leg pressure, stay sitting square in your saddle, you may lean back a little bit, apply a little bit deeper pressure with your sit bones. You don't want to be sitting forward cause that is a cue that you want your horse to go forward. So make sure you are staying nice and balanced, you are staying square on your seat bones and your just gently pulling your horse backwards. So that is how you would want to stop your horse and back using 2 reins."