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Move Over - By John Lyons with Francine Acord
Getting your horse responsive to moving over to touch is a practical and useful skill. Whether you want your horse to move a foot to square up to pick up a foot, move over in a horse trailer to close a partition or ask him to step off the hose, being able to ask one or two feet to move over one or more steps can be handy and can also be a safety issue. |
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Move Over - By John Lyons with Francine Acord
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Getting your horse responsive to moving over to touch is a practical and useful skill. Whether you want your horse to move a foot to square up to pick up a foot, move over in a horse trailer to close a partition or ask him to step off the hose, being able to ask one or two feet to move over one or more steps can be handy and can also be a safety issue.
When you put hand pressure on a horse to move away from you, it is natural for the horse to push into your pressure. I have found that with most horses I need to teach them to move away from pressure instead of pushing into pressure. When handling your horse, you will run into situations where you will want to make minor adjustments for the hindquarters to move over, the shoulders to move over or to move both shoulders and hindquarters with a side pass step.
The goal of this lesson is to get my horse to move one step at a time from the lightest cue possible from hand pressure or finger pressure. I like to teach this lesson with a bridle on my horse (full cheek snaffle with lead rope attached to the bit ring), or if the horse is responsive to the halter, then I will use a halter and lead rope. The lesson starts with using the bridle/halter with the lead rope to move the horse. Then I introduce hand pressure for him to move over. This lesson also comes in handy when you need to move one foot to get it away from a potential snag (caught in the loop of a hose), shift weight to pick up a foot and adjust the horse that is standing tied.
If your horse has been taught two of my other lessons - connect the rein to the hips, and connect the reins to the shoulders - this lesson will move along quickly. When I use the bridle to teach this lesson, I will get a better response because the bridle sends a clearer signal to the horse in order to get him to move. |
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