The one rein becomes like the blue light. If you got caught for speeding a time or two, you'd learn to recognize the blue light cue. If the horse doesn't slow when you take the slack out of one rein, actually having to do the work of turning is like getting caught in the speed trap. It's something he'd rather avoid, if he can.
Just like the blue light, though, you have to allow the horse time to respond. You can't jerk him around. Reach for the rein, pull it steadily back, but be willing to release tension the moment you sense the horse working with you.
Riders are often taught to circle as a means of slowing a horse. That usually doesn't work, and it doesn't teach him a "slow down" cue. A horse doesn't have to adjust speed much to make a circle, and he never gets a release of the rein. It's the release - not the signal - that teaches the horse what you want.
Disengage the Hip
Now let's take a close-up look at one part of the change-direction exercise we just did.
When you pulled that right rein, you pulled the horse's mouth, pointing his nose where you wanted it to go. So when you were headed north and wanted to make a 90-degree turn, you pulled the rein back toward your body until the horse's nose was heading east.
Changes of Speed
One of the best ways to teach the horse to slow down is to make frequent changes of speed. This exercise will give you a chance to work on both the "speed up" and "slow down" cues.
First, though, it's important to remember that if your horse never goes fast, he won't have a chance to learn to slow down. Of course, we're going to teach him to slow down from a walk before we can tell him to slow down from a gallop. But here's where a lot of people get into difficulty. They try to keep the horse slow, so that they'll never have to deal with him going too fast.
Let's say that they're comfortable riding at the trot, but they don't want to canter. That's OK. But when something startles the horse and he breaks into a canter, the rider doesn't have a stop-from-canter cue. With this exercise, though, you can solve that problem.
Ask your horse to walk. After about 10 steps, ask him to walk faster. Be sure to do this with leg cues, not just by leaning forward or kissing to your horse. That will give you a chance to train him to leg cues because kissing won't work when he doesn't already want to go forward. After 10 steps, slow back to the first speed. After 10 more steps, speed up again, and so forth.
When you can make that definite increase and decrease in speed, then you can add a third speed, maybe a slow jog and then back to a fast walk. Mix up the speeds so that you're not riding more than 30 feet at any one speed. That will have your horse listening for your directions.
When you ask for these changes in speed, what cue will you use to tell him to slow down? Our objective is to get him better trained to the reins, so we have to use a rein cue for training. If he goes back into the slow walk when you say whoa, that's great. But it won't help him obey your rein signal when you're cantering, or when a deer jumps out of the forest and scares him.
Here's where the exercise we first did comes into play. Teach him the one-rein "slow down" cue. Ride at a fast walk and after about five steps, reach for the right rein. Slowly bring it back to your body so that by the time you're at 10 steps, the horse is turning. As soon as he moves his hip over, release the rein. He'll have slowed as he slightly changed direction.
After he slows and changes direction slightly, allow him to walk at the slower speed for about 10 steps, and then use both of your legs to tell him to speed up at the walk. Repeat the exercise, using the left rein this time.
When you play around with this, really work at noticing when he begins to slow down and releasing the rein as soon as that happens. You don't have to get him to move his hip. Your goal is to teach that rein cue as the "slow down" cue.
Because of when you release, the horse will figure out when you want him to turn and when you just want a slow down. He'll also learn to "read your mind" as he feels your body naturally position itself for whatever you have in your mind. Don't make any conscious body position changes, though. Just be yourself, and the horse will figure it out.
Work the lesson until you can vary speeds and directions. Trot slowly for 10 steps, speed up the trot for 20 steps, slow to the walk for 20 steps, trot again and so forth. The more times you speed up and slow down, the more your horse will be tuned into the cues that you're using.
Eventually, you'll be stretching out the trot, then adjusting back to a medium trot, then faster trot, then less-fast trot and so forth, until the horse slips into a canter. It won't be a zooming-off canter, but just an extension of the exercise you're been practicing, After about five strides, bring him back to a fast trot, then a slow trot. Then come to a walk and finally a stop. Pet the horse and congratulate yourself.
Ride More Specifically
Once you've taught the cues, then you and the horse need practice with them. The most important thing you can do to improve his training is to be specific in your riding. You've seen pool players call which ball they're going to send into which pocket. Do the same thing with your horse. Tell yourself that you want your horse going faster when his shoulder is even with a certain fence post.
At the beginning, you may have to start your signal five posts early, just as you began to pick up your rein after the horse had made five steps, even though you wanted him to slow down in 10. But with practice, your horse can respond in a two-post distance. Or you can put cones or buckets in your work area, and ride "in and out the windows." The key is to be consistent with your cues, and to be specific.
To get your horse to respond better, you have to train more, and release consistently. Don't get more intense with the cue. Don't jerk the rein to get him to stop. If you use the signal to punish your horse, you'll undo the training and create tension.
Imagine if sometimes the blue light was a signal and sometimes it zapped your car like a lightning bolt. You'd get scared of blue lights.
Most horses who don't respond to rein cues are afraid of the rider's use of the rein. There's no such thing as a hard-mouth horse. Even horses with a history of abuse can learn the "slow down" cue when you take the time to teach it. It just takes education and practice to convince them that the rein is a signal.
Once the horse responds to your signals well in a quiet, familiar environment, then you can introduce some distractions. You'll find that he doesn't do as well with these distractions. You may lose 30% of his performance the moment another horse enters the arena, and another 30% the moment that other horse begins to trot. That's OK. Review these exercises until he can respond just as well with another horse trotting around as when you were in a quiet environment.
Then introduce another distraction or perhaps take him to a new location. Make it fun, though. As a team, see how well you can do. Don't punish your horse when he gets upset, but build his confidence and your skill by seeing how precisely you can do the lessons.
Now that you have a game plan and a variety of exercises to work with, you'll have your horse stopping and slowing on cue so well that someone will ask what trainer you took him to. You can just smile and say, "I taught him myself."
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