[HorseDance]

My horse does free walk and walking on a loose contact very well. The problem is that when I ask for more connection in the walk (medium walk), she tries to trot. I've done exercises such as halting after picking up the reins and doing lots of pick up the contact, let it back out, repeat. It's not working.
So I'm wondering if there is any other types of exercises that would fix the problem.
Also it's not a tack or mouth issue - I checked it all.

 

[tinyliny]

you probably just need to experiment with raising your energy, without doing it so much that you tip her into a trot. try just raising your energy a bit mentally, inhaling and don't put any leg on at all and see if she walks more energetically .

 

[jaydee]

Try increasing the connection gradually, a lot of horses learn to associate shortening the reins/increasing the pressure with going faster
If she understand verbal cues from lunge work then use them under saddle

 

[loosie]

One thing that many people do is 'ride forward' - that is, your balance may be causing her to feel like running to keep you balanced. Ensure you stay balanced & it's not your body or energy that's cuing her to trot.

 

[riley0910]

My horse has the same problem. When she goes into the trot I stop for a quick second, back up around 5 steps, then go forward again. Never let the horse stop completely or for to long or the will take advantage and trot just to get a break. Lots and lots of repetition for this activity but they learn eventually! Hope this helped

 

[churumbeque]

Hold left rein steady and half halt right rein long and slow. She is to try and match her step to the hold and release.

 

[equitate]

Likely the rider is not allowing the bascule of the gait and adding leg, so the horse goes to the next gait. The easiest way is to ride a small circle, which puts the horse more into the connection with the outside rein and controls the gait and the tempo. Halting or backing up will likely just cause the horse to close/low/be more into the outside rein and be more tense. (The other thing you can do, if there is an instructor that knows the exercise, is to be able to comb the reins so that the horse pushes into the connection.)

 

[tinyliny]

I think Equitate has a good point. if the horse does not feel that your body is ready and following the increased motions of the walk, he won't offer it to you, then , when still getting a cue to increase speed, he goes to trot instead.


when the horse is walking, do you feel your seat match the saddle so well that there is little or no "noise" in the movement? what I mean by noise is when the saddle is swinging at one rate, but your butt doesn't quite follow exactly, lags behind a tiny bit, so it kind of bumps the saddle a bit and you feel a movement of the saddle as seperate from teh hores's back. he will feel that too. only if you are moving in perfect time and relaxed with the saddle can you NOT have a bit of this lag that creates vibration and bump. asking the hrose to speed up his walk means you have to be ready to move your pelvis/butt bigger and faster to stay in sync with the saddle. sometimes , almost starting that movement before the hrose actually does can make him speed up to match you, just as "stilling" your seat and moving less/slower than he is can cause him to slow down to match you.