10/16/2026
Honestly, it doesn’t matter What discipline you ride, having a horse work easily for you is important. So whether you compete in sports, shows or just trail ride. Teach your horse (AND YOURSELF) how to use body cues.
Friends, if you want to get the best out of your horse-- and your ride-- learn to work your legs INDEPENDENTLY. If your horse has 2 sides, you need to be able to SPEAK to each side, seperately, and sometimes simutaneously-- with a DIFFERENT cue! Get rid of that mindset that "you can't," that your legs only thump, thump, at the same time (usually meaning nothing to your horse). EACH of your legs should (without due thought) automatically push the front, center or hind button on the sides of your horse, quickly, and with NO thought, when needed-- it should be so automatic that later you are amazed with yourself, lol. Not really. I drive a standard and don't need to say "now what, clutch? break? Which gear?!!" Nope-- I shift while talking, looking, driving, singing, turning, stopping... you get it. My legs know what to do, my arms/hands know what to do. I don't need to hash it out before taking action. Try this. Set your horse up and you can check him and yourself. Put a barrel, or something, in your practice space (arena, wide spot in pasture, etc.). Start asking your horse to go in a REAL circle about 8-10 feet out, around the barrel. Stay. On. Track. If you are plow reining or neck reining, is your horse staying smooth? Is it round or are you having to correct, correct, correct? Is your track a triangle, square, oval? Then that is wrong. Typically we ride along on a trail and only use our reins to guide our horses. Using your reins only directs the head of the horse, so if you need it to get over from a low branch, and you pull its head over, you may just get a head pull and branch in the face! Sure, we want our horses to "turn" from rein cues, but it is BODY cues that move the BODY! When you personally are walking and something is in your path, do you have to 1: turn your head, 2: hope your shoulders follow your head 3: hope your feet follow your shoulders-- all in time before running into the object? NO! We just GO AROUND the object! FEET first! So if your horse needs to move over, USE YOUR LEGS (heel, calf, spur) to move his feet! So back to the circle: When your circle is getting oval, use a shoulder over cue to move it back in space, leave the rein where it belongs. When your circle is getting tight and stiff, use your inside, middle area leg cue to round and push your horse back out into a circle. Practice, practice, practice (I have a youtube of me working this on Hopi, look it up!) I bring all this up because I was thinking about you all today! When I'm working a horse I always wish for an audience, lol-- not for ego, but because I would love to demonstrate and explain things for your betterment! So, today I got Jacky out and was planning to just start some muscle toning riding with her, but as time went on I was trotting circles and she was listening to me, so I decided to try her on the barrel test. Using a very light neck rein cue, I put her around in circles. To the right she was pretty nice! To the left, she's a bit rusty. I moved her in, I moved her out-- all with my legs only. After a little while I just dropped my reins and continued without any rein cues at all. We continued to do circles, pretty circles-- Big circles, Little circles, moving in, moving out. She isn't perfect-- but I was pretty pleased that my girly I've not been on and surely not schooling in many, many months-- still remembered her cues. If you can't use your legs independently and simutaneiously in different areas of your horse, this will never happen. You should not have to think "put left leg on ribs hold lightly, put right leg on cinch, push slightly harder" -- and I hope you can tell what I'm doing right there too!! haha-- (hint- circle to left, rounded in ribcage but making her bend and move in to a smaller circle). We have 2 hands and 2 legs, make them so good when you ride that they become the horse's 4 legs! On another point- Jacky is still upset I took her baby from her. When I rode her farther out into the pasture, she took a mini fit-- whinnying, tossing her head, making little stompy steps-- she was having a tissy fit! That could be scary in itself, she was NOT thinking about her rider at all! I immediately made her side pass. We sidepassed half way across the field and suddenly switched and sidepassed back across again. I made her do that Non-Stop, back and forth, back and forth until she was huffing pretty good! She was ready to calm down and listen to ME. We did lots more little schooling exercises before allowing her to get back to the arena and her friends, but all this is NECESSARY! Take the time to learn leg cues! Take the time to teach them to your horses! Have fun on your horses people! Stay safe! I'm thinking of you! :) Suzi
