Horse Riding: How To Go Faster

We are now going to look at how to encourage your horse to go forward and to go faster. We use our legs to help the horse to do this. What Jennifer is going to do in a minute is that she is going to ask the horse to walk on and then she is going to use her legs to encourage him to make a transition into the trot.

Some horses respond from a gentle nudge or a kick, some horses respond to a squeeze. It is important that you ask your instructor which way is best to ask your horse to move forward. For young horses or horses who need a bit more encouragement you can use the voice.

It's also important that Jennifer uses her body weight to help encourage the horse to go forward so, before she does any upward transitions or asks the horse to go any faster, it's very important that she sits tall and lightens her body weight. At the same time it is also important that she keeps the rein compact. So, ask him to walk on there Jennifer.

So as you can see she is nudging him with the leg just to encourage him to go forwards in the walk. When she wants him to go up into a trot transition she's going to lighten the body and put a bit more pressure on with the leg. If he doesn't respond straight away she is going to be a little bit firmer with the leg.

Now as you can see, in the trot, she's keeping him going forward, just occasionally nudging him with the leg. If she wants a slightly faster trot she'll place the leg around and put a bit more pressure on. As you can see there he moves away from the leg, forwards in the trot.

If you could just ask him to go a little bit faster there Jennifer just using a bit more leg. Good. Then when she wants him to slow down she'll just stop with the legs, slow, make herself a little bit heavier, and then to walk, she'll sit, use her weight and ask him to walk forwards.

If she wants him to go faster in the walk, she'll again use the leg, put pressure on the sides of the horse, and ask him to step away from the leg. .