A horse can be trained to transition speeds gradually through association when the rider hums briefly and pulls on the reins. Train horses to slow down without breaking their gait with helpful advice in this video on riding and caring for horses.
With the rein in horses, we like the prior horses to have a speed transition from a fast gallop to a slow lope, and while we do that, we'll teach them that by humming to, just a short little hum and we pick on the bridle a little bit, put our legs in 'em to keep 'em forward motion, and keep 'em loping, so they don't break gait of ours and stop. We teach 'em as 2 year olds and we just keep with that program all the way through 'til the time that they show. It's a very easy thing to teach a horse and if you hum to 'em and they don't respond, just break 'em down to a walk or stop 'em and back 'em up, and then just keep doin' it until your horse associates that hum with slowing down. When they figured that out really good they start trying to stop on you, that's where your leg comes in and you can keep that forward motion going.
