Your trainer for today: Dale Rudin of Young Rider Magazine

Do you love to ride your horse fast? If you ride in speed events like barrel racing and pole bending, you probably do! It’s fun to see how fast you and your horse or pony can zoom through a pattern and to see if you’re the quickest of the day.

However, galloping as fast as you can is not the most important part of riding speed events. There’s a whole lot more to think about if you want your horse or pony to do well.

Your horse has to be a good listener, even though he might get really excited about running. If he doesn’t hear what you’re telling him, he might blow past a barrel or pole. He also has to have a balanced body for making quick turns.

To get the best times, he also needs to be flexible and curve his body around the turns. A stiff horse will be unbalanced and have to slow down to make a tight turn. So if you want to be successful, it’s necessary to have really good control of your horse’s body and his mind.

Always start your training sessions with a few minutes of warm-up at the walk and trot. Do some flexing exercises to help your horse limber up. Ask him to flex his head and neck to the side while he’s standing still. Then ask him to bend to the inside while he’s walking a circle and do that same thing at the jog or slow trot.

Once he’s loosened up, you can ask for some bending work at the walk. Flex your horse’s head and neck in one direction by shortening your inside rein. Open your outside, or opposite, rein by bringing it away from your horse’s neck.

Now, nudge your horse at the cinch with your inside leg. That’s the same leg that your horse’s head is bent toward. Just ask for a couple of steps when your horse is first learning this exercise and keep the circle he’s on pretty big so he doesn’t have to bend too tightly

Once he has figured out how to bend his body at the walk, try it at the trot. Bending is a terrific way to loosen and lighten up your horse’s shoulders. That will help him keep him balance in tight turns.

When he’s walking, jogging or loping around a barrel or pole, his body should bend around the turn. Teach your horse to bend correctly off the barrels or poles first.

Ride large and small circles at different gaits while asking your horse to bend from his head to his tail.

Keep your rein contact even. Just shorten your inside rein enough to ask your horse to follow the size of the curve your horse is circling or turning on.