Training Tips to Teach Your Hot Horse to Lope Slowly

For the past 20 years, Clinton Anderson from Downunder Horsemanship has devoted his life to creating the best training tools and videos available to help bring his method to you. Join him on his weekly endeavors of tackling some of the most challenging situations with problem horses, and problem owners. This week, we watch as Clinton shows us a few training tips to help teach your hot horse to lope slowly.

Clinton begins this episode by telling his viewers one of the biggest secrets he used when he was just starting out in Australia for getting his horses to lope slowly and be nice and relaxed. He used to get in a lot of ex-racehorses that had just come off the track or ex-barrel racing horses that were very hot and reactive. Clinton had access to a long, dirt road that went on for about two and a half miles. At the end of it, there was a big “T” intersection where the road met with another one. When he reached that intersection, he’d spend a few minutes loping the horses in a circle or moving their feet in a constructive way to get them to tune in to him. He wanted them to realize that they were loping to work.

Then, on the way home, he did nothing but transitions with the horses. He practiced One Rein Stops, Yield to a Stop, Bending Transitions, Draw to a Stop, Two-Tracking, etc. He ended the session with the horses relaxed and listening to his cues and. It didn’t take much repetition before the horses learned to conserve their energy and lope slowly down the rode. Some of the Thoroughbreds he trained would initially gallop down the road, but by day three or four, they’d lope and go a bit a little slower each day. Each day they’d go a little slower until after about seven or eight days of loping down that dirt road they’d walk more like little kid’s ponies if he wanted them to. They started realizing if they galloped down, they’d have to do more work at the end of the road.

The thing to understand is that horses are pretty lazy creatures. Clinton reminds his viewers to use that to your advantage. If your horse is in a hurry to get home, work him at home. Some horses are terribly barn sour to where they throw a fit when you ask them to ride away from the barn or rush to get back to it. If that’s the case, work your horse at the barn and then let him rest away from it. The key is never letting your horse associate one place with easy or lazy behavior. This approach will help you break bad habits. However, to see results and make progress, you need to be consistent.

For the past 20 years Clinton Anderson has devoted his life to creating the best training tools and videos available to help bring his method to you. Now, Clinton has created a way to bring 20 years of horsemanship into the palm of your hand. Introducing the mobile method. It’s part of the Downunder digital experience and it makes learning the method easier than ever.

Our Downunder Horsemanship app gives you access to your digital training kits and allows you to download videos and training content directly to your mobile device or view them on your computer. The Downunder Horsemanship app also offers over 100 hours of free, in-depth training content. You can access all the training material through three different levels by joining our No Worries Club. To learn more about the Downunder Horsemanship training method, become a member of the No Worries Club, or to get information on any of the products seen on our show, head over to our homepage and download the Downunder Horsemanship app today! If you’re interested in getting accelerated results, let a Clinton Anderson Certified Clinician bring the Method to you!