Teaching trot up

equidstar11

equidstar11

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Anyone have any tips for teaching laid back horses to trot up?
Neither of mine are particularly fussed on running in hand but they’re always playing together in the field!
Would like to work on being able to trot up for vets / competitions & my own monitoring of them anyway!
Any tips welcomed!
I can have a helper at the beginning but ideally where I won’t need help long term.
 
Initially have someone with a lunge whip a horse distance away as encouragement. Wear trainers and walk short distance, turn horse away from you ( I say to horse..ready) then run like buggery. The helper cracks whip at the top of your turn. It may not take that many times before they get the idea. Bridle on..not headcollar.
Alternative with no helper is carry schooling whip and as you turn the corner and say ready flick the whip against horses flank to get the energy to trot.
 
I trained Rabbit my 2 year old the following :

First I used a rope halter rather than a bridle/normal headcollar - he's done a lot of groundwork in a rope halter and is light as a feather in it. I then made sure I had a big open space so that the worry about running out of room was out of the equation. Following that, I made sure the line I used was long enough for me to get a bit ahead of him, but not too long that it gave him to opportunity to lag behind. Then I simply faced the direction I wanted to go, started off with an active walk (I used a click/cluck/roll of the tongue noise to encourage him to up his energy) and then proceeded to run like mad, waited for him to respond by popping up into the trot, and then did a short distance before stopping, giving lots of praise and repeating. I then slowly switched up the command between the above named three or saying "ttttteeerrrroottt" to solidify the training and he now happily trots in hand each time :)

I did the above by myself as I don't have the luxury of a helper and I didn't use a whip as you can't always guarantee that you'll have one around to use.....
 
Something that I must admit, I’m not particularly good at but I’ll also make sure every time you’re leaving the horse that he or she is walking up alongside you hold properly, etc not plodding along behind you you may already do that, but I think it is quite important as part of the process.
 
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