English gone Western.

I don't know a pleasure trainer that does the backing bull****. And I know plenty of very successful trainers.

Good for him.

The methods that I reference are used on horses that are currently showing at APHA, ApHC, and AQHA world shows. People don't train that way anymore -- pleasure horses have evolved as have the training methods. It's all about forward and through.

With a gaited horse, the last thing she wants to do is try to disrupt a gait. Pushing him forward and establishing a two-beat, synchronous jog will benefit him more than pulling him back and then pushing him forward again. Been there, done that.

A person "on the road to becoming a professional horseman" should know better than to paint a discipline with a broad, inaccurate paintbrush, don't you think?

Hmm, I don't recall painting an entire discipline with a broad paintbrush, just pointing out that he refused to train any more WP horses when the peanut rollers (which were often trained with jab and yank...among other things) became popular.

I prefaced that blog post with the statement that I am not a WP trainer, nor do I wish to be, but I do train free-moving, level-headed, effective horses that actually have a purpose outside of an arena. Would they be in the ribbons at a high level breed show? Nope, but that doesn't make them a lesser quality horse with lesser quality training, just different.

Your method probably works too, I may try it someday, but don't tell me mine doesn't work because you haven't ridden one of my horses, so you don't know how they travel or handle. My customers are happy and so are my horses, so that's all that really matters to me.

Oh, and just because todays WP horses are different doesn't necessarily make them better, by any means. I actually preferred the older styles of horses that were cadenced and controlled without actually looking like zombies...but that's another debate for another day.

Ah, I see. Yeah, if you are talking about horses thirty years ago (which it looks like you are), yeah sure, they probably were just cranking them back.

As I was reading this I remembered that stopping her and then pushing her forward makes her not trot at all. She racks and gets really annoyed.|

SO actually stopping and backing would never ever work. Haha

Oh, sorry, I didn't realize it was a mare.

I'd edit to "her" but it won't let me.

Oh don't worry about stuff like that! Haha

Bump on this also
I feel like I only got told to not use a training fork

Did you read that thread I referenced?

Yeah, the problem with my mare is that "stop, back, go, go, stop, back, go" and so on stresses/confuses her
Instead of trotting, she racks and then doesn't stop. >.>
I actually even tried it today. I figured I might as well try, but she just got confused and racked with her ears pinned.

Meh. Oh well
Thank you for showing me that though, I bet it would work nicely if it weren't my silly horse (: