Train for Western Riding

Lesson 10

Nancy Cahill

Copyright Ó 2009

The Western Riding Class

When your horse finally reaches the place in her training that you are ready to show her, you need to make sure that you set a pattern at home and work it in pieces as well as in its entirety.

You need to set your cones with extra distance between them initially to give your horse more time to think about changing leads one after another. This will give her a chance to be successful, which will build her confidence. Then over time you can bring the cones closer together until you have them the legal distance of not less than 30 or more than 50 feet apart.

The Line

When you first begin to attempt the line, you may not be able to string several changes together. This is normal. Don’t get frustrated.

Keep in mind when doing the line, one good change leads to the next. If the first change is not successful or well-done, then just as in the very beginning, you need to stop and think of what went wrong. Don’t continue the line as you can expect the next changes to be wrong.

Instead, walk back to where you started and try again. Do not scold. When you are finally successful on that first line change, proceed to the next. If the second change fails, stop again and figure out where it went wrong. I don’t return to the first change as it worked out well. I will just walk back and give the horse several loping strides to approach the second change and make another attempt at it. That is the way to handle the whole line. As each change is successful, add another.

The line changes will seem to come at you very fast. When you were training, there was lots of time to approach the lead change while traversing the arena. Now the change comes about every seven or eight strides. My advice – relax and wait for them to come to you – don’t rush. Breath!

Cone Strategy

Of course, you want to avoid running over the cone. If you are showing, this is a disqualification. However, staying close to the cones does make the approach to each change much easier as you won’t have as far to move. Keep in mind, the line is a straight one and if you don’t try to stay as close to that imaginary straight line as possible, you will find yourself farther and farther from each center (between the cones) where all changes should be made.

As soon as you pass a cone in the line, it is not necessary to move across the line immediately. Usually, there are 5 to 6 strides between the cones in which you can work. Say you are approaching the line on the left side of the cones. You are in your right lead. As you pass cone #1, you must wait to begin moving over so that you don’t knock over the cone. Keep in mind when you see the cone go by, the back half of the horse still has to clear the cone.

As you pass the first cone, this is stride one. On stride two, you would begin to remove the weight from the outside (here, left side) by moving toward the opposite side of the cone in front of you. You are still on the left side of the cone. It is this stride that tells the horse you are going to change leads. On stride three, you add more weight removal as well as your elevation. Approximately on stride four (I say that because it depends on how far apart the cones are set), you will perform the actual change. The change and a one-stride half pass movement will put you on the right side of the next cone.

As you are able to complete one lead change after another, you will find that you have succeeded in doing all four changes down the line. This is the hard part.

The lead changes that happen across the center of the arena give you more time to approach and exit the changes. They should be performed in the center of the arena and the horse should enter and exit half-way between the side cones. Remember, no matter where the cones are set in the arena, the center of the cones never changes!

The Pole

Crossing the pole at the trot and the lope are major parts of the Western Riding pattern. If you don’t make it across the pole, it doesn’t matter how good your lead changes are. You will be heavily penalized.

As you are training for the lead change, you should also be training the horse to cross any number of poles at the walk, trot, and lope. Although the horse doesn’t cross the pole at a walk in this class, that is the gait at which you start introducing the pole crossover. I have poles all over my arena so that I can use them every day for practice. Eventually they are crossed at all three gaits until the horse is very comfortable and begins to see how to adjust her stride in front of the poles.

After trotting the pole in the Western Riding class, the horse will have a lope transition. Some of them will begin to anticipate the departure into the lope, which is a 3 point penalty. To avoid this penalty, I actually practice by setting the horse up to make a mistake at home. I’ll allow her to think I might want to lope off after crossing a pole, and if she tries to, I stop and back very slowly over the pole. You may have to do this several times to convince her that you tell her when to lope and that she must wait.

They don’t get to make their own decisions.

When showing green horses in Western Riding, it is best to use a snaffle and a hand on each rein. It makes it much easier for the horse to read your cues when you have the reins balanced.

It may take several years for the horse to become consistent enough to perform the changes on a loose rein. This is a high level event and one of the last ones with which a horse will become comfortable.

The Class

The breed organizations that hold western riding classes are the American Quarter Horse Association, the American Paint Horse Association, the Palomino Horse Breeders of America, the American Buckskin Association, and the Appaloosa Horse Club of America. Scoring and patterns for the Western Riding are similar in all of these.

In the AQHA there are 8 approved patterns. Cones or markers must be set no closer than 30 feet and no farther than 50 feet. There is one pole that must be crossed at a trot and a lope.

All three gaits must be utilized in the pattern. The horse walks into the arena quietly and at a designated point, begins the trot. A pole is crossed at the trot and then the rest of the pattern is performed at the lope. There are typically 7 or 8 changes required, except in the Green Horse classes, where there are 5 or 6 depending on the pattern used.

The class is judged on quality of the gaits, lead changes, manners, and disposition. Credit is given for even cadence, smoothness of the changes, balance, and reasonably loose reins. Scoring is based on 0-100 with 70 being average. Points per maneuver range from:

-1½ (extremely poor),

-1 (very poor),

-1/2 (poor), 0 (average),

+1/2 (good),

+1 (very good),

+1½ (excellent).

Penalties range from -1/2 to -5 with the possibility of disqualification for reasons such as breaking the pattern (going off course).

Using the methods you’ve studied and given the needed time, you should achieve a quality lead change.

The more horses you get to ride and train, the easier it will become for you.

Your end product should be a horse that changes so easily and smoothing that it appears anyone could change leads on her.

We both know it was just a little more difficult to get to that level!

Assignment:

Load a short video to YouTube, PhotoBucket or another video hosting web site of you changing leads down the line; send me the link to view the video.

Send the video link to: nancy.orders@gmail.com