How to Lope a Horse

Video Transcript

"We'll ask our rider to lope this horse and we'll notice that she's going to use her outside heel only. I often say it should be the mere whisper of your heel the outside only asking your horse to lope off your leg in a quite mannerly fashion. We are working with a young horse here who does happen to swap his leads so we are going to ask this rider to go back to the walk and correctly que the horse again hoping for that correct right lead. So there we are back on our correct right lead, the lead is that maneuver where the horse is making his stride so that inside leg, or in this direction the right leg is stretching further. If the horse were to be on his incorrect, the rider would experience a much bumpier opportunity here on this smaller circle. We want correct leads and we want horses that are able to be qued for those very simply with a smooth and clean transition. When the rider is loping the horse we should be able to maintain that same straight ear to shoulder hip to heel position. We sit up tall, keep our eyes up, steering and guiding as much with our eyes as any other part of our body. Our hands must remain quiet in front of the saddle, our hand position will dictate whether we're going to get a low or high head carriage. In our western horses we often have our hands drop just a little bit lower as we are learning, or as we are training the horse, teaching him to be more collected western like position. When we go to ride the horse at the lope, our seat must be able to move and follow the rhythm. Always maintaining the contact or what we say, we like our riders to have what we call a lightly polishing the saddle with our seat bones kind of movement. Everything from the waist upward should be maintained almost as I call ballerina poise, it's not just about having a fashionable good looking rider, but one who is straight up, healthy and balanced."