The Lope

I got out of stock breeds and went back to my Arabians because I was seriously tired of using my leg to push the horses hip over to get them to do their side "you can walk faster than this" lope. My world champions lope was like a train wreck, I hated it. I rode a few nice QH's though that loped like that and they were comfortable but the leg strength to push em over was such a workout it wasn't worth it to me. My current show horse (an Arabian/quarter), Rojo has a lope you can glide with all day long, super comfy and you don't need to stick your spur in his belly the entire time, ask once and he goes till you say woah. You can see a short video of him loping here:

Wow, nice horse... He does have a nice smooth slow lope!

But, wow, you keep a lot more contact on their mouth than in the quarter horse world .

I'm guess its because they are more forward moving?

That's his trainer riding in that video, but honestly it looks like there's a lot of contact but trust me he's riding with a pretty light hand, just looks like theres a lot of contact because we don't show with a ton of drape like the stock breeds do. Although, there are quite a few people who show their western arabs on a very direct rein out there (I wish they wouldn't)

Do you need that much rein though to keep the lope slow or is it just style?

I rode a morgan once that was fine as long as you kept a shorter rein so you could rate his speed, you didnt need contact persay just a shorter rein for a quicker connection; but on a long droopy rein he just never stayed slow... but he wasnt mine, and I didn't train him... he just belonged to a family member. I think he pulled carts and did english pleasure classes both at morgan shows. Nice horse for the time he was showing, but that was years ago (horse is near his 30s now) so I'm sure he would look like crap today lol.

Everything is just so specialized in ALL breeds.... that's what I wish would change.

Ps. I just noticed in the photo of him there is a lot more drape than appears... I think it's the higher headset that throws me off .

Yes its the headset likely throwing you off, like I said there isn't much contact at all on the reins.. If I get a chance tonight I'll make a video with the reins held like they would be if I was riding a QH and you can see he goes the same (you'll have to ignore all the slack of the reins flopping around if I do!)

I totally agree the trot is crazy too!!!!

Awww, thanks; but you don't have to make me a video. I can see it in the picture.

Again, the western pleasure jog when trained correctly with a horse that is built for the job is very comortable.....

I don't really think there's anything wrong with the lope. As one person said, it really depends on the build of the horse, and whether or not they were built for it or not. My horse has a nice, natural lope, sometimes it takes a while to get her to do it because she's pretty fiesty and likes to canter fast, but once she gets tired, she slows to a nice lope. I can make her do a nice lope, but sometimes, I just let her canter a bit to get those 'ants out of her pants' lol

I trained under a woman that told me some great words of advice for the pleasure arena;

"The best way to get lots of slow is ride lots of fast."
Meaning the faster you push your horse to go, and the more you do it the more the horse is going to want to go slow... you'll never get slow by forcing slow.

And also

"You'll never make a hammer out of a screw driver."
Which means that if the horse ain't built for it, it aint going to do it. It will be a lot harder to hammer something in with a screw driver... your better off buying a hammer.