Within the gait, a horse can transition to go faster or slower by listening to his rider's body language and commands. See how a horse can slow down through control of the rider's seat with riding information from an internationally-certified horse trainer and instructor in this video on horse lunging.
Hello my name is Rebekah Larimer and I am an Internationally certified horse trainer and instructor. And today I am going to show you how to do transitions within the gait. Today I have Rosemary my assistant who is riding and Maria the ground assistant or the lunger. And Rosemary is riding John at a trot you can also do these transitions within the gaits and the walk and the canter, but it is very nice and easy to be able to watch it in the trot. So right now Rosemary and John are going at just a nice little trot here. And now we are going to ask them to go a little bit faster, so Rosemary is going to do a longer scoop with her seat to encourage him to take longer strides. And then she's going to start and we are going to do a smaller trot and so Rosemary is not going to follow so actively with her seat, she is going to take smaller scooping motions with her seat and ask him to do a smaller trot. Notice how his trot has changed. And then she's just going to ask him to go faster again or lengthen his trot stride. And then she's going to ask him to slow down again. And it's the same exact thing in the walk and the canter where your seat and the length of the scoop of your seat influences the horse's stride and what do they want. And that is how you do the transitions within a gait.
