We're going to take this horse to a forward lope as we ask him to be collected. This is often a piece that many backyard novice riders struggle with. It's hard to imagine that in holding your horse forward in to its movement, everything that worked at the stand still, the walk and the jog, will also work with the lope. The rider needs to be assertive enough to take charge of this position and not worry about whether they're doing it correct or incorrect. As long as we stay committed to those basic lines, the basic position, you can do a lot of good and benefit to this horse by keeping him an a more organized behaved program. So with this horse right now, he's on a, he's mildly collected, we're going to add just a little bit more pressure, recognizing that as we make more demands on the horse, the minute he softens, the minute he submits, we're going to be sure we recognize that and allow him to find that his own reward. We say he seeks his own reward, we can't give him treats and tidbits, we've got to to just stay committed to the pressure, let him release the pressure, and let's go ahead and put just a little more demand by shortening our reigns. We walk our hand up the reigns, ask for a little bit more, and put him to a great deal of collection knowing that when he submits and releases that pressure, the rider, there we go, the rider just kind of simply quites messing with him. He'll find that as he softens, moves forward off of that hind quarter in to the bridle, the submission will bring him to his own reward. We want a horse the remains balanced on the lope. We want to be, we want to be confident that we can ask for this pretty early on, without making him struggle in his desire to become a more collected and athletic horse. Over time, as he learns to hold and maintain this position on his own, developing the correct muscles and the balance that he's going to like, we'll soon be able to loosen that reign, and create that very long, maybe Western pleasure reigning style. But the horse has to earn the right to get to that long reign, and it's going to to take some time putting him through the riggers of collected loping. A lot of riders say they don't do because it's just hard. I put a lot of time in to my small circles, collecting a lope, before I would ever say that this animal is well trained.
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