Lesson 4: Beginning to Ride: Walk and Halt
This lesson teaches beginners how to ask a horse to move forward in a straight line and how to halt. Before proceeding, the student should completely review the first three lessons: In any case, the student will need all the skills learned in those lessons to hope for success in this one.
How to ask a horse to walk
No, you don’t say, “Yo, dude, move it.” In fact, with horses—except if they are being unruly—you always ask rather than tell. Indeed, with horses, tact is very important. Despite the cowboy movies you’ve seen, horses respond much better to being asked things in a calm, expectant manner rather than an aggressive, bullying one. Good thing, too. You couldn’t outbully or outmuscle a horse if you tried. So be grateful that they respond best to what I like to call not the iron fist in the velvet glove, but rather the velvet fist in the iron glove.
This is not a brainteaser. It is just a way to think about horses. They are huge beasts so you must be firm and more forceful with them than you would be with the family cat. At the same time, they have been called (and I believe they are) very spiritual beings, so at the core of your attitude toward them must be kindness and love. Combine those two things—a firm demeanor arising out of unconditional love and tactful treatment—and 99.99 percent of your dealings with horses are likely to be positive ones.
Confirm your own position first
Before you ask a horse to walk, check your own position, as described in lesson 3.
First, check your stirrup length.
With legs out of stirrups and hanging relaxed down horse’s side, see that the bottom of the stirrup iron is at your anklebone or just below or just above it, depending on comfort. (Preference to just above for forward seat, just below for balanced seat.)
Now pick up your irons.
Take inventory of your position, beginning at the bottom.
1. Balls of feet in stirrup irons, heels pointing down as far as possible without causing yourself pain or beginning a stretch you cannot sustain for half an hour to an hour.
2. Stirrup leather solid against your leg with the front edge pointing away from the horse as it travels down your leg.
3. Calf muscle solid against horse’s side.
4. Knee bent and pointing forward and laying flat against the saddle.
5. Seat forward so pelvis touches pommel.
6. Top of hips pointing slightly forward to create a slight lordosis, very slight, in concert with squared shoulders.
7. Shrug up and let your shoulders drop behind to open your chest and put your arms in a relaxed position, elbows slightly in front of your torso and bent to create a straight line from your elbow, along your forearm, through your straight wrist and down the reins to the horse’s mouth.
8. Your chin should be level and your gaze should be in the direction you want to go. But don’t stare at it. Begin to learn the concept that Sally Swift calls ‘soft eyes.’ You will look where you want to go, but you will train yourself to be calmly aware of what is in your peripheral vision area at the same time. (See Centered Riding by Sally Swift, an essential beginner rider textbook.)
9. Make sure your hip joints are loose, and ready to move in concert with the movement of the saddle when the horse steps off. You will be surprised, the first time you ride, how much movement there is to a horse, even at the walk.
How to ask a horse to walk
It’s so simple, it’s hard. Simply look in the direction you’d like to go, release the reins forward slightly, press against his side equally with both calf muscles and, if he’s really lazy, also say, “Walk,” or cluck, which is not the kissing sound western riders use to encourage a horse onward, but rather a cluck like a chicken makes using the tongue against the roof of the mouth and/or the front teeth.
Your horse probably will not go. He’s not stupid. He knows you’re a beginner and he’ll avoid working as long as you let him.
OK. Start again. Press harder with the calf muscles and do all the rest. He still won’t go. By this time, you’re tempted to flap the reins at him, another thing you might have seen in western movies. Don’t do it. Don’t ever do it. First of all, it doesn’t work. In fact, it has the opposite effect because to a horse, reins mean slow down or stop. And it could hurt his mouth by jerking the bit around.
Here’s your first chance to deal with frustration. You could get active with your body and bounce around in the seat, but that might hurt the horse’s back. If he does move forward, it would be only to avoid pain.
Eeek! Now what?
Kick. Not like you’re looking for a field goal. But use both feet and tap both the horse’s sides at the same time. More than 99 times out of a hundred, he will walk. In fact, since he has been stuck in one place and so have you, he might lurch you around a little as he moves into a walk. Don’t worry about it. Breathe, and adjust your kick next time. Use it earlier—after no more than two ineffective presses—and adjust its severity.
When a horse walks, he uses his head and neck and he will pull the reins through your hands unless you keep your fingers tightly closed. Allow your hips to move with him, which means relax on that saddle, and most of the problem will disappear. You can banish the rest by letting your elbows go with the motions. Here’s a way to think about it: you get to keep your fingers the way you want them, tight, and the horse gets to have your elbows the way he wants them, following his mouth. Fingers=yours. Elbows=the horse’s. (Getting used to this concept and the motion now will help you out in the next course, in which you will begin to canter.)
