To slow down a horse that wants to go fast isn’t as hard as it may seem. But it does take a know-how and consistent training. That is what we will be going over in this article.

Making the horse want to slow down

You want to make your idea the horse’s idea. Make the horse want to go slow. This is accomplished by a few different things. First you want to do a lot of gear changing with the horse. When I say gear changing I mean, going from trot to walk, to canter, to trot, to canter, to walk. You don’t want to just canter the horse and then hope you will wear the horse out.

The longer the horse goes and faster they get, the more they tend to forget you are up there and just can take off on their own. So canter the horse maybe 20 feet, if you feel the horse wanting to get faster, bend the horse down to a walk and walk a couple of circles. Do it again, and then again. Canter the horse off and then slow down to a trot, canter, trot, canter, and trot. Soon enough the horse will realize that there is no reason to go fast because you are just going to slow them down.

Another thing is get in a field with trees let’s say about 50 feet apart. Start at one tree and canter to the other, then trot around that tree a couple of times, and then canter to the other tree and trot around that one. Soon they will realize that at the tree there is just more work so they won’t be in a rush to get there when cantering.

Giving the horse a reason to stop

In order to get a horse to go slow at the canter, you have to practice cantering them. You have to let them canter, and canter, and then when they want to stop, canter some more. I’m not saying that you run them into the ground, but you have to let them have enough time to practice and get good.

The way to make your horse stop by listening to your seat, is a couple of things. Before you stop the horse with like a one rein stop, you sit in the saddle to queue them first. Because they will realize that when you sit in the saddle, you just pull their head and neck around to stop them. So they will stop by your seat when you sit down.

When you are cantering the horse, and they have had practice at it, and you have taught them to respond to your seat or are in the process of teaching them. You have to give them a reason to crave you sitting in the saddle. Make them think that each canter is going to be their last, that they are just asking, “when are they going to sit down, when are they going to sit down, please sit, please sit.”

When the horse is going to be having fun and taking off, you usually aren’t having fun. When they seem like they aren’t having fun, going slow and at an easy pace, you usually then are having fun. It is no fun to ride a horse you have to keep pulling back, and that takes off when you ask for something a little faster. If you do a lot of changes of speeds from trot to canter to walk to canter to trot, you will give them a reason to want to go slow. And don’t forget to let your horse practice cantering and be able to slow down on their own.