Lesson 6: Basics of the Trot
Begin trotting
If you are an older child, teenager or adult, forget posting the walk. Instead, watch some videos of people posting, or watch real people posting, before you begin learning it yourself.
NOTE: In riding dressage and in Europe, and sometimes in hunt seat, it is called a rising trot. However, the best way to learn it is not to rise, but to swing your hips, so I will use the term posting, the venerable, old British term.
Posting the trot a few steps
If you have very short legs, or feel you will be unsettled by a faster gait, then by all means, ask for your first trot in two-point position. At the walk, assume the two-point, and immediately press the horse’s sides firmly with both legs at once. That’s how you ask for a walk, though. So you’ll have to ask much harder, and much more sharply, than you are now asking that horse for the walk. Cluck at the same time, and say “Trot” firmly. If it doesn’t work the first time, use more leg, and a louder cluck. Do not shout at the horse. If you’ve tried this a few times and he still does not trot, then ask an assistant to run alongside the horse, holding onto the noseband, for a few steps until he begins to trot.
For your first trot, start it at the beginning of the long side of the arena and do not attempt to turn corners. Ride the trot either as long as you are comfortable mentally (you won’t be comfortable physically yet) or to a point before the next corner where you can sit down and bring the horse back to a walk. Walk through the short side of the arena, getting back in two-point toward the corner. Walk in two-point through the corner, and again trot down the long side, coming back to the walk before the corner.
Practice just these few steps of trot for a few sessions before you attempt to turn a corner if you are working on your own; if you are studying with an instructor, then these lessons are reminders and refreshers, and things will probably be going faster for you.
But remember one other thing. BREATHE!
Halt, again
When you are bored with this exercise, return to the walk and practice halting. Practice doing it with less and less use of your hands, and more and more use of your weight in the saddle with a little hand. Don’t forget to leave your legs firmly on the horse’s side, too. And remember to stop the motion of your hips and buttocks as well. And remember to look up, not down at the ground in front of you, or at your hands.
