Speedy Hacking

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ThePinkElephants

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Hey guys, just been wondering...

Whenever I go for a hack with a riding school, as soon as we go into a canter or faster I always find myself speeding up 'ten fold' and find it difficult to slow down a little and stop the horse from overtaking the other riders. It feels as though if I wanted to, I couldn't stop the horse and feel kinda out of control (though obviously as soon as the lead horse stops, so do we ; )).

Just wondering if when out hacking on your own horse, on your own or in company if you have problems with stopping/control in the faster paces or just generally and if so how do you deal with this?

Or do you all have great brakes, thanks to good schooling/being used to your horse etc . ?
 
lol! i'm usually a passenger once we hit the countryside. he will stop after a canter, altho if he still considers there is enough path ahead, he will throw a tantrum. and is generally not very good at waiting for his slower friends to catch up!
 
Some horses are just strong and always want to get to the front and others will settle and relax into a nice canter with some encouragement. Do you sit down deep with your seat and ask the horse to listen to you or are you tipping forward and allowing the horse to pull away with you? It might be that you need to ride more with your seat and legs and not rely so much on the rein contact.
 
I wish I could say that schooling brings great brakes - I'm sure that for many it does, but my boy loves to run. He's nicely schooled, does well at dressage and SJ but is a different horse with a long stretch of soft open ground in front of him, especially if he's got a friend with him. My name on here is what I often aim for but don't get. I wouldn't swap him though. He's getting on a bit now, but still loves a good run.
 
depending on how many people I ride out with when we have a canter, we usually cant stop till we get to the front, you just get used to trying different ways to stop your horse lol
 
We don't get to canter out hacking (no where to canter!) but on farm rides, we can lack breaks... generally speaking, we have to be out front or Danny goes insane and his little mind goes... somewhere.
Even in front though, it takes us a while!
tongue.gif
 
I am always speedy hacking , mine loves to run and run she does, i tend to be pushed into gallop position and spend most of my time looking like a jockey, if i use my seat to slow her down i just bounce so have to stand up hahah . I like to let her run if she wants but she will hang back if i want her too but we are jogging all the way back and i use a pelham so i dont like to put too much pressure on her mouth so i am very careful with her.
 
Ah well glad I'm not the only one who would get a speeding ticket if they could when out hacking!

I probably do tend to tip forwards, I'll have to remind myself at the beginning of the ride to sit deep! Otherwise when it comes to it I just tend to go with the flow which I guess may not necessarily be too bad a thing!

Funnily enough I think my main 'worry' when the horse speeds up and tries to overtake is being told off by the instructor : P.
 
You might also find, depending on the RS and the standard ot other clients, that your horses don't get to canter very often (either ridden or when turned out) so that could make a difference too. I know one RS where that is the case and they always canter individually. So, a client will canter away from the main group, then stop. Then the next one goes and so forth until the instructor comes last. That helps quite a bit but obviously would take ages if you wanted long canters.

You should def ask your instuctor for guidance (that is what you are paying them for!) and probably try a few different horses (look for who looks happy at the back and ask to try them abouther time?) to check out if it is you or them.
 
Didn't understand if he was YOUR horse or a riding school horse. If a RS horse, most RS horses know exactly where the slow and fast bits are, where they have to wait, etc etc etc. So the feeling you got of not being able to pull up is because you couldn't! On RS horses, they go at the places they know they go at and they only stop at the places they know they stop at. They tend to ignore the rider at those times, ususally because they are so used to very different standards of rider.
 
Hey Box_of_Frogs, yeah sorry I meant a riding school horse. That definitely makes sense, makes me feel better knowing that I have little choice in the matter... in a weird kind of way lol.
 
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