Editor’s Note: This is the second in a two-part series. Need to review Part 1? Part 1 covered an introduction to spur stop and where some top trainers and horsemen first noticed it. Randee continues her questions here.
How and when should the spur stop be applied, and how do you teach it to your students?
AQHA Professional Horseman Charlie Cole: It has many uses and benefits. From teaching my horse the spur stop, when I walk to obstacles in trail and softly squeeze my legs, they will slow down and look at the obstacle. On the rail in western pleasure, I can close my legs and can draw them back to a slower lope if I need to.
Click here to read the rest of the article by Randee Fox in The American Quarter Horse Journal
“Keep your reins long. Apply your lower legs to slow her down. If she doesn’t slow apply your spurs softly, slowly and evenly holding them until she slows, then release, keeping your reins long.”
Huh? Spur to slow? Spur to stop? No reins? What the heck is this?
The instructions made no sense to me, as it was totally counterintuitive to the way I had been trained to ride. I was trying out a darling 5-year-old proven western pleasure show mare in a sweet little lope for the first time with trainer Denise Callahan.
Read the rest of the article by Randee Fox in The American Quarter Horse Journal by clicking here
