Gaining control of a horse means being able to control a horse so that it moves in any direction at the rider's command. Discover how to do warm-up exercises to get a horse to control its feet with helpful advice from a reining horse trainer in this video on gaining control of a horse.
Now I'm going to show you some wonderful exercises to do while you are on your horse. Remember our goal is to be able to get control of this horse, left, right, forward, back. We did some of that stuff on the ground, we're also going to do it from his back as well. I need you to get this horse responding to my hands, responding to my feet, there is different combinations of things, but I will show you some basic things. It will help you in your ride on your horse, in order to have better control and better communication. Now I want this horse to be able to control his feet, that is the most important thing. If I can control where his feet go, I control where he goes. So my warm up exercises are going to be designed towards getting control of his feet. Connecting his feet to my hands, connecting his feet to my seat, connecting his feet to my feet. Whatever I have to do to get his feet to go where I want them to go, at the speed I want them to go, and the direction I want them to go. Whether it is forward or back. Now I imagine that I am sitting on a clock in my warm up. With twelve ahead, six behind, and all the numbers all the way around the clock. And I want to be able to control this horse's front feet, especially around the clock. If I were to take his right front foot and put it to twelve o'clock, and then the left front foot followed up to twelve o'clock. I would be going that way, forward. But if I got him to go to six o'clock, I would be going that way. And obviously if I wait until one o'clock with his feet we would go over there, two o'clock over there, three is that way, four, five, and six, all the way around the clock. So I control where he is going by directing his feet around the clock. So my warm up exercise is going to be designed around just having that kind of control. Now there is one thing that is very, very important, a horse in his body position can either connect to his feet or disconnect from his feet. Now, connecting to his feet is basically a straight body position. So when I say I am going to work his feet around the clock, I want his body or his alignment, his chin and his tail to basically line up. So I want to swing this horse like a gate. I don't want to bend him around, then I would disconnect him from his feet. But as long as I keep him straight, and can swing him like a gate, I can take those feet anywhere I want to go. Straight is offense, bent is defense.
