All I’ve Got on Stops

Now that we covered the basic Monte Foreman Stop let’s fancy things up a bit.

The first stop I showed you involves footfall patterns and a hand on the neck as a cue to stop.
This is where I first learned about the effect of timing. I studied Mort’s footfall patterns so thoroughly I hear “Now, now, now” in the back of my brain the entire time I ride.

So using my body to stop my horse was pretty easy for me once I learned to melt into my horse and relax my legs.

“Melt into my horse and relax my legs ”is the stickler here.

I used to ride with my feet shoved down into my stirrups. Hard enough I was damaging my knees. This made my upper body tight so I would lean forward and back trying to stay balanced. As my shoulders swung back my legs would counterbalance by swinging forward and vice versa. The worst part of this was it meant I rode entirely with my hands and out of balance.

I developed this habit because of the Monte Foreman method. It teaches the rider to stay light in the seat and balanced over the horse’s shoulders.

We were taught to actually rise out of the saddle during a stop to free the horse's shoulders so he could slide.

This not only got me in my rigid funny way of riding, but it got our horses to stop upright, like they were sitting down, instead of the forward reaching, front legs pedaling 30 foot slides we see now.

I’m not blaming the riding method for my errors. Remember I trained myself off of a very few lessons, so I’m sure my translation of things got muddled.

But, when I learned to get down in my seat, relax my legs and get in true balance my stops got waaaay better.

Much like riding bareback, my seat comes from keeping my butt in the center of the saddle. My legs and arms are now tools for guiding and propulsion, not for keeping me on the horse.

I’m doing some of my old balance lessons on Loki these days. She almost turned out from under me on a cow the other night. I’m getting rusty. Loki seemed amused.

So back to the stop. When I teach a horse to stop nowadays it’s a little different.

When I’m starting a colt at first I wait for him to stop on his own. When he stops I exhale so my weight sinks in the saddle then take my legs off of him. I don’t stick my legs way out, I just make sure there’s an inch or so of air between him and me. Then I get off, loosen my cinch and we’re done.

After the first few rides I’ll wait till he’s walking around, then exhale and take my legs off. He’ll just about always stop because he knows I’ll get off if he does.

If he doesn’t respond to my cue I’ll go back to waiting for him to stop first then try again after a few more rides.

Once he understands what I want I’ll stop from the trot and then the lope.

I always end the ride when he stops. So I don’t stop until I’m done riding.

Then I quit getting off, but let him rest on a loose rein. If he fidgets I send him forward and we work some more than try again.

This is usually two weeks in and I haven’t pulled back on him yet. But he’s stopping pretty darn good off my seat.

When I finally pull it’s a beat after he’s stopped. Then I work my reins (left to right instead of straight back) until he rocks back a little. Eventually this turns into a step back.

Once I start this I ask my horse to step back every time he stops. From a lope, a trot or a walk, he needs to rock back.

At this time I usually have a pretty cute two to five foot stop going on.

If I am teaching a broke horse to stop I basically do the same thing, but I’ll exhale, take off my legs and then pull him down with my hands.

Other than that everything’s the same, including getting off as soon as he stops. So be ready for some short rides for awhile.

I progress from the walk when my broke horse stops before I have a chance to pull.

The next day I’ll trot and quit for the day when he stops before I can pull him.

Then on to the canter.

After That I will give him a minimum of a 20 second rest every time he stops, but we go ahead and have a normal work out.

That’s it for today. Remember, we aren’t pulling and we still haven’t said whoa.

I ran across a pretty cool photo of me doing a Monte Foreman stop on Okie in back in the 70's. I was wearing a little halter top ala Charlies Angels and everything.

Of course now I can't find it. If I do I'll post it.