Reiners- I need details.....

I read a comment about a reiner that said a horse is given a cue and expected to continue with the movement until told to stop.... I do the same thing with my dogs- they are to sit until I release them, none of this sit-stay stuff for us. So I get the concept.

I am wondering how you train a horse to keep spinning though.... trotting and walking and cantering are easy- they just keep going until you cue for stop. I am thinking that in order to get him to keep spinning, I will have to cue him to stop spinning as part of the training.

Can anyone elaborate on this? (And please, don't give me advice, like get a trainer- I am his trainer and I am asking the knowledgable people on here who can share their knowledge.)

Yes it is true. If I set a horse in a line they keep that line until they are told do change direction or stop. Same with spinning backing anything you ask. They do until they are told to do something new or different.

With turns you cue them and they will keep turning until you say whoa. Some will keep their rein over a bit others will not. I tend to not as I do not want the horse to start leaning on the rein or my leg. There are many ways to get to this point. One big thing is do not let them stop until it is your idea and you say the word. Do not use the word for anything but stopping and by stopping I do not mean a sliding stop although it is used for that too. Whoa means stop and stop now what ever you are doing you stop. The horse need to know this.

So I am now going to start using my stop command when training him to do the spins.... he does two to three steps right now, but all with a leg cue to get him started and a constant rein cue. Is this just something that will be built upon until he understands not to stop with out the stop command? Thanks for your help :)

I get it.... keep re-cueing him until I say whoa......... light turned on above my head :)

Until he really starts to turn well and is consistent do not use the whoa word. That work should be used very lightly. Right now just get him turning correctly. For one things when you are teaching them to turn right at the beginning you should be walking into the turn and walking out of it. So if you use whoa you will have a horse who jumps out of his turns.

Also, for the spins, I would start with shorter spins (shorter as in less spins rather than more). And make sure YOU are the one to stop him. Even if that only means a half-spin to start and then whoa. Practice random times to say whoa so they will never know how many you are going to ask them to do. For all they know, you could be getting them to do one, or twenty. That way, they will always be ready for the command, but still going until you say the magic word :)

Hmmm... how am I going to teach him to keep going without a leg/rein command unless I include the whoa in the beginning.....he walks until I command him to stop or to trot/canter.... it seems like I should do the same with the spin....... and I don't understand making him walk out- that seems like it will teach him to walk out of a spin and not keep his feet planted..... more details, please- I am soaking this up :)

When you are teaching the turn it MUST be a forward maneuver. To get this you NEED to keep the horse moving forward. So when you start you walk into the turn and do a step or 2 and walk out of it. Then you build on that. So when all is said and done you are doing as many full turns as you want but if the horse learns to suck back in the beginning you will have a big problem and it is very hard to fix. So in the beginning you need to keep the horse moving forward.