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Reining a.k.a. Western Dressage, Part 3: Perfect Elevens by Melody Fargo, Showtime Ranch, Lancaster, CA, USA
The slide stop combines 3 elements of reining. We work on the stop, the back and the roll back, which helps to teach the horse to go deep in the ground. To go deep means to reach way underneath himself for the stop. I begin to teach my horses to stop by moving my feet slightly forward. At first I ask verbally and with my feet and then pick up the rein. We do this repeatedly until they stop at the walk and trot on my voice and feet only. When they do that we start dropping the reins forward and almost resting them on the neck at the same time we stop.
I then move on to the back. We put slight weight in the stirrups, lift our seat a wee bit off the saddle and ask with the reins and cluck to back. We do alot of stopping and backing for about two months time, until the horse is real responsive. As in the spin we add speed to the back with a speed up of the clucking. At first you will have to use the reins to encourage more speed in the back up, but as you do the repetitive work everyday he will start to back on just the rise of your seat.
When the horse is doing well at this with virtually no rein we move on to the roll back, by stopping backing and rolling the horse over his hocks and trotting off back over his tracks. I do this along a fence line to encourage the horse to roll back straight. This takes much patience on the riders part to not hurry the training. If you do the horse will not perform it correctly and will start to fall out of the roll back. So please take patience to teach him correctly.
Once the horse is stopping backing and rolling back over his hocks fairly well, you can move on to the canter. Make sure you use skid boots now to protect the fetlock, or the horse could burn himself. In which case he will not go deep because he will associate it with pain. We start off with doing the same things only at a relaxed canter - not too fast. Be careful not to grab his face with the reins , the result would be he would jam his front feet hard and jolt to the stop. The slide stop is smooth and flowing. I use the beginning slide alternated with a back or a roll back, and then a slide and stop and sit quietly as a reward for a correct stop.
This is slow and monotonous training, please don't rush your horse. When he is doing this with ease you can start to extend the canter. At this point you want your horse to break in the middle(dropping his haunches in the ground and dropping his neck for balance and almost pulling his front end along with his front feet while sliding to a stop.) I do this while fencing my horses(back and forth between two fences), making sure to ride them almost into the fence but not quite. This will teach them to go deep. We alternate between rollback and slide.
When he can do this well we add more speed. When we add speed the degree of difficulty is greater. In my previous article about rate I told you that to slow my horses I sit up straight and relax. I always ask my horses to collect about two or three strides before the slide. This sets the horse up to drop his quarters and puts the horse in the correct form to slide . I then ask for the stop just as he is lifting his hind legs off the ground, this puts him in deep. Timing is very important once you add speed to your run down. Keep in mind to stay quiet and balanced in the saddle to help your horse balance in the slide and stop straight. If your horse is pushing out away from his body in the slide. You may need to add trailers to his sliders to help keep him straight.(Now that is a whole differant article.)
Anyway heres to those slides with trail of "perfect elevens" behind them. I hope I have helped some of you to understand the mechanics of the slide stop and how to get it. RIDE ON - SLIDE ON- SMILE ON- CAUSE ITS FUN!
