A posting trot refers to lifting out of the saddle seat with the rhythm of the horse. Practice a posting trot with help from a riding instructor in this series on horseback riding.
Hi, my name is McKenna Smith. I'm an Instructor here at Enterprise Farms and this is how to go into a posting trot. You're going to squeeze and cluck, "Tsk, tsk" and ask him to trot. And I'm looking at my outside left leg and I see it's going up and down. So, I'm going to go up with it. So, as it's going forward, I'm moving forward and pushing off of my knees, my thighs and my calf. So, let's say I'm picked up the incorrect diagonal; so, I'm going to do that. "Oop". So now, I am going off of the incorrect diagonal. That means the left shoulder when it's like it's going forward, I am sitting and when it's like it's going back, I'm standing. So, I look down and I see that, so I'm saying an extra beat, "Tsk"; oop, there he walked", "Tsk", ask him into a trot again. So, if ever I picked that correct beat, if I want to switch it I say, "An extra beat, they're on an incorrect diagonal" and he switch again, they're on the correct diagonal. So, if I'm posting and I lose my, lose my irons, I want to make sure that, "Tsk", I am balanced and that I'm pushing off of my thighs, knees and calves. For more inexperience riders, "Tsk", you want to make sure that you'll just bring your horse back to walk with getting your irons back on. So, if you have a weaker leg for your posting, a good exercise to do would be posting without irons or stirrups. Okay, just a reminder for beginners, a couple of things you want to remember is your positioning when you post. You want to make sure you're going straight up and down and not forward and back. You want to make sure that your horse is responding to your and your reins are short. If you're doing no stirrup work especially for beginners, you want to make sure you do this in a lesson on a launch line and not by yourself in case you lose your balance. Couple of other things you want to really remember is just your basic body positioning, not landing too hard when you post and your diagonals. Always make sure you're on the correct diagonals so you're in rhythm with the horse. And that is how to do a posting trot.
