Some horses amble down the trail with a ho-hum attitude.
Although rare, every once in a while you’ll come across the odd horse that consistently lags behind the other horses on a group ride. I say it’s rare because horses are a herd animal—they feel safest in a group and nothing brings this mentality out in a horse like a group trail ride. However, there are some horses that plod their feet on the trail. There are two common reasons why your horse is lagging behind the other horses: 1) He’s sorry-broke and lazy. 2) His natural pace is slower than the other horses in the group.
Go Back and Do Your Homework
If your horse is falling behind the rest of the group because he’s lazy, the answer to fixing your problem is to work on establishing a good “go” button in the arena with transition-type exercises, where you get to practice a lot of go, then transition, then go, then transition, to get the horse good at taking your cue to move his feet seriously. Exercises to practice are One Rein Stops, Yield to a Stop, and Bending Transitions. By the time you take your horse out on the trail in a group, he should respect your leg cues enough so that when you gently squeeze his sides and ask him to speed up, he does so without a fuss. Not only that, he should maintain that gait and pace unless you tell him otherwise.
If you find yourself constantly pecking at him to keep him in a gait, it’s a dead giveaway that your basics aren’t good enough. You need to spend some quality time in the arena working on impulsion exercises from the Fundamentals, such as the Cruising Lesson, Follow the Fence and Diagonals, and then work on the same type of exercises on the trail, such as Controlled Cruising and Confused Loping.
If your horse is lazy, go back to the arena and establish a good “go” button with transition exercises, such as Bending Transitions. Lope the horse forward for 20 feet. Then sit down deep in the saddle and slide one hand down the rein to cue the horse to walk. Then bend him in a circle.
What Comes Naturally
If the reason lies in your horse’s natural pace, there’s not a whole lot you’re going to be able to do about it. You can make some improvement, but you’re probably not going to completely fix the issue.
Just like people, horses have their own natural flow or style of moving. Take me for example: I’m naturally a fast walker. I get from point A to point B in a very quick, “I’m on a mission” sort of style. When I’m in the shopping center, I’m passing people right and left. Other people walk in a very slow, feet-shuffling, “I’m going to my own funeral; I’m in no hurry” manner. That’s just their nature. And just as it’s not natural for me to slow down and act casual, it’s not natural for them to walk with urgency. Neither one of us is wrong; we’re just different. We can both certainly change our pace—I can slow down and they can speed up—but it takes a great deal of concentration.
The same is true of horses. The old ranch gelding probably doesn’t have as fast a walk as the Thoroughbred off the track does. Just as the 15-yearold draft cross isn’t going to hustle down the trail like the 5-year-old Arabian. Or the Shetland pony isn’t going to be able to easily stay up with a long-strided Quarter Horse. You catch my drift?
You can improve your horse’s pace to a point. If you find that he’s lagging behind the group, squeeze his sides with the calves of your legs to cue him to speed up and trot to catch up with the other horses. When he catches up to the group, sit in the saddle and pick up on one rein to slow him down to the walk so that he’s following a safe distance behind the horse in front of him.
As long as he stays up with the other horses, leave him alone. If he falls way behind, repeat the same steps to catch him up to the rest of the group. You’re trying to find a happy medium between staying up with the group and allowing the horse to travel at his own natural pace. If you are consistent about speeding him up and catching up to the group every time he falls behind, the horse will learn to monitor his own pace.
Just like us, horses have their own natural pace. While you can improve your horse’s pace to some degree, how fast or slowly he travels is part of who he is.
Success Tip: Ride with similar paced horses.
If the cause of your horse’s lagging behind isn’t a lack of training but rests with the group of horses you’re riding with, and it’s a big issue for you, find a different group to go out with. It’s not a whole lot of fun to constantly have to kick your horse to catch up with the rest of the group. Just imagine how frustrating it is for your horse.
It’d be like if someone threw me in with a pack of well-conditioned, long-distance runners and expected me to keep pace with them for all 13.1 miles of a half-marathon race. I run and work out, but I’d have no chance at all of keeping up with them and it’d be demoralizing. But put me with a group of runners who stay at a pace similar to mine, and it would be a fun experience and build my confidence.
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