Horseback Riding - Walking

Hi, I am Coney and this is Sam and Bobby and we are from Crestwood Farm and we are going to demonstrate the correct position of the rider on the horse and we are going to demonstrate walking the horse.

First, you want the rider to sit up straight. They are holding the reins in their right hand with a close fist around the reins and your index finger in between the reins. Your left hand lays on your left thigh. You want to sit with the ball of your foot on the stirrup. Thats the wide part of your foot up by your toe. You keep your toe up and your heel down. You want to keep your shoulders square, keep your chin up and look straight between the horses ears where the horse is going. You want to sit like you are standing up with a bend in your knee. Thats with the riders shoulder, hip and heel in a straight line, so that your legs are underneath you and easily can go around the horses belly. To ask the horse to walk, you are going to squeeze with both legs and if you need to, use a voice command of clucking with your voice to get the horse to walk. The horse has a four-beat walk in that they walk one, two, three, four with their legs - one, two, three, four. To stop the horse, you are going to pull back on the reins and you can say the word Wo. To go ahead walk again, when we walk, you are going to squeeze with your feet or give him a little tap with your heels, get them to walk. To turn, you are going to guide them with neck reining in Western which means you take your left hand to the left to get them to turn left and your right hand to the right to get them to turn right. You also use your other aids and your other aids are your legs as well as your reins. So, your right leg will be used to push the horse to the left and the left leg will push the horse to the right. Use the opposite leg for the way that you want to go. Whenever you ride a horse, you want to wear an approved riding helmet like Sam is wearing. You always -- the minute you mount the horse have your helmet on. You dont want to be putting the helmet on when you are already on the horse. You want to start off mounting with your helmet and you keep it on through your ride. You also want to always use an approved riding helmet. Bicycle helmets are not durable or strong enough for horseback riding, and thats the proper way to walk a horse.