Training & Advice - The Slow Down Cue

This article is from the October 2020 Horse Deals magazine.

Chelsea Ragg of Crystal Pines Performance Horses has been showing reining horses for over ten years and has had multiple championships and placings to her name. She has also travelled to the USA to spend time with some of the best trainers known in the reining horse industry and is always keen to share the knowledge she has acquired.

I have always had success with my horses slowing down well for me and keeping control of their speed. I have very specific cues I use when I’m educating young horses, or even when re-educating older horses. I’m always thinking that I need to keep it easy and simple for horses and clients to learn.

My cue for asking my horse to slow down is by relaxing my inside leg or ‘taking the inside leg off’. Sometimes when I’m teaching students this cue and say “take your inside leg off” they push it off forcefully. This is a lot of effort for the rider and will change their body position. What I want to see is your heel relax toward the horse’s shoulder slightly. Your outside leg is like the clutch in the car, it needs to stay on to keep the motor running, otherwise your horse may stall to a stop. Your outside leg can also be used to help stop their shoulders falling in by pushing the hip up underneath the horse when guiding in a smaller circle. On a trained or “finished horse,” I want to be able to cue my horse to slow down with my inside leg, then be able to put my inside leg back to neutral ready to cue my horse for the next manoeuvre required.

The slow down cue in reining is used in a small slow circle, but it can also be used on horses that want to take off or burst to their stops at the top end of the arena.

So let’s say I’m loping a horse at a happy medium speed and I want to slow my horse down — I’m going to breathe out and relax my inside leg. If the horse doesn’t slow down I’m going to keep my cue the same and reinforce what I just asked for. To do this I may need to bring the horse all the way back to a walk with contact through the bridle. When my horse walks, my leg goes back to neutral. I then may walk half a circle before I lope off again. This becomes a reward for the horse to come back, have a rest and keep it sweet. The corrections need to be done sooner rather than later, I do not want to let my horse lope for half a circle before I take a hold and let him know he should have slowed down half a circle ago. I should be able to feel if my horse slowed down well enough within three or four strides. I may need to repeat this 5, 10 or 20 times before my horse really starts to get an understanding of my leg cues. I may also want to start humming with my voice as an added back-up cue. Avoid saying whoa to slow down, save that for your stopping cue. (If you’re not up to loping you can always do this exercise at a walk or trot.) Reward often to keep the desire in your horse to keep trying and learning.

After a number of times reinforcing what I wanted I’ll try again, I’m hoping by now my horse will want to come back to a walk with just taking my inside leg off. If that’s the case, great, I can now go back and put a little more outside leg on to say keep loping. Then if my horse does a full nice slow circle or two, I can then come back to a walk and reward the horse by leaving him alone for a circle or two before trying again. Coming back to a walk after your horse does a movement correctly is reinforcing what you were after and is a reward for the horse to keep aiming for. My circle program basically has the same sequence. When we start progressing, as the horse gets more confident in what I’m asking, we can build on it by going faster and adding more finesse and degree of difficulty, but always correct first.

Quick tips for success:

- Breathe out when slowing down.
- If your horse is on the fresher side try to make sure he’s a little tired and thinking, you don’t want to make a war out of this and make it a bad place. Find rhythm and a steady mindset first.
- Don’t guide your horse into small circles when you slow down each time, otherwise your horse may start to drop the shoulders in. One in every ten circles could be enough for your horse.
- Have someone video you to send to a trainer. They can help you to problem solve and progress.

Do Your Homework

Your homework needs to be done at home before you take this to the show pen. The show pen is basically a test of your progression of homework you have been doing, or what you need to go home and work on for the next show.

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