Break Bad Habits

Common bad riding habits and how to overcome them

by Allison Trimble

A common topic of conversation in my barn is how to change bad habits that have taken hold over years of riding. It is surprising how similar a lot of people’s problems are. In a sport as specific as reining or cow horse, these habits can cause immeasurable problems in your horse’s training and in his ability to perform maneuvers. I asked a group of regulars at my barn what they feel I harp on them about the most, and after being barraged by suggestions, we settled on the following as the most common problems across the broadest group of people.

Leaning

Whether in your circles, spins or when working a cow, leaning gets in the way of your horse completing a maneuver at speed. In your circles it can cause your horse to pop out of lead or drop his shoulder into the circle, and it can definitely affect your steering. In spins, it is common for people to lean out and shoot their inside leg forward when asking the horse to turn. You may be able to get away with this when your horse is turning slowly, but when he starts to speed up, you aren’t centered enough to go with him. On a cow, riders can have a tendency to lean in toward the cow when it changes direction. This puts you off balance and puts your body in the way of your horse coming through the turn and staying with the cow. Balanced and centered riding is the key to successful maneuvers.

Broken Wrists

Any time you take the slack out of your reins by “breaking” your wrists (bending them out of line with your arm) when you are riding two-handed, you are making a weak and difficult-to-control motion. Imagine that your arm, from your elbow to your knuckles, is on the same plane. When you handle the reins, wrist-breaking changes that angle in your wrist joint. There is no strength or control in this motion; you are putting all of the weight and pull on a very small and weak joint. What you should be doing is keeping your elbows bent and drawing your whole arm back using your shoulders, back and abdominals to accomplish the motion.

Busy Hands

I truly believe that to maintain a horse’s softness in the face, you have to be very consistent in the way you handle his face. When people are learning new things or working on maneuvers, they can become extra busy with their hands. Similar things happen in the show pen when nerves set in. Horses do not respond well to the bit being rattled around in their mouths for no reason. Try very hard to only take hold of your horse’s face when you are being thoughtful. When you are trotting or loping, try to absorb the movement of the horse in your shoulders, and do not let the movement of the horse--or your body--travel down your hands to his mouth.

Pulling Yourself Forward

This is a really common mistake that people don’t often know they do. When riding two-handed, most people have a tendency to pull themselves up to the horse’s face when they take hold of the reins, rather than sitting back and driving with their bodies, drawing the horse back to themselves. This puts you out of position, encourages hanging on the horse’s face, and generally does nothing but speed the horse up. It is such a simple thing, but causes so many problems; so if you choose only one of the bad habits on this list to get rid of, this should be it.

Throwing Yourself Into Your Stop

Whether you are teaching a green horse to stop, or running and stopping a finished show horse, you do not want to say “whoa” and then throw your shoulders back and reach for your stirrups. A stop is a powerful maneuver that requires you to be centered and supple in your body. The motion of your horse lifting his shoulders and running down the pen is what helps you lift your shoulders and be prepared to stop. Overdoing this position will put you out of sync with your horse and behind his motion when he goes to the ground. Think about elevating your chest and looking up in your rundowns, saying “whoa,” and then tipping your pelvis and going to the ground with your horse, not before him. A rigid body or throwing your shoulders back can lead to the kind of stops where everyone goes “OUCH” when they see it.

My broadest suggestion for you if you are maintaining your own horse is to use common sense. Know what you are trying to accomplish, and analyze whether or not what you are doing is working toward that or away from it. Videotape yourself and look at the video objectively. You will be surprised how many problems you can solve by watching yourself. You want to be able to identify your bad habits and then recognize them when you do them in real time. It will help you tighten up the distance between the rider you are now and the rider you want to be.