How to Lengthen a Horse's Stride

When you ask a horse to lengthen its stride, it should to cover the same distance but use fewer strides to accomplish this. It should not increase his speed or tempo, and the rhythm should maintain an overall regularity. It is not an exercise to be undertaken with a novice or poorly schooled horse, as it requires a high level of concentration and understanding from your horse. Trot is the most commonly lengthened stride, although advanced horses are capable of extending their walk and canter strides.

Things You'll Need

  • An enclosed, flat, safe area in which to ride
  • An assistant
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Instructions

    • 1

      Complete your normal warm-up exercise when your first mount your horse. This is essential to loosen and warm up muscles, and to ensure the horse is supple, balanced and actively using his hindquarters while stretching his back, before progressing to more advanced work.

    • 2

      Include walk, trot and canter during the warm-up phase, checking that you regularly change gait (called transition work). Change the rein, or direction, periodically, and include circles and some simple lateral exercises, which require your horse to move directionally sideways and away from your leg aid while traveling forward. This ensures the horse is attentive and listening.

    • 3

      Start preparing your horse to lengthen the stride by asking for a forward trot between two set points about 60 feet apart. Use the trot aids of sitting quietly in a forward walk, maintain contact on the reins and squeeze with the legs to ask for trot. Count the amount of strides your horse takes between these two points. The trot has a two time beat and you should count one-two, one-two, as your horse's feet hit the floor. Each sequence counts as one stride.

    • 4

      Approach the first of the two points on the next circuit and aim to cover the ground with fewer strides, but at the same speed. To achieve this, lift your hands slightly while maintaining an even feel down the reins. Use your seat and legs to drive your horse forward, being careful not to encourage it to go faster. If this happens, keep firmer contact on the reins and continue to drive forward with legs and seat. It may help to rise to the trot, or post, slightly higher and slower. Count the strides as before and note the number. If you have used fewer strides to cover the same area of ground, you will have successfully lengthened your horse's stride.

    • 5

      Use some ground poles if you are struggling to teach your horse to lengthen. Depending on the size of your horse, the normal distance for trotting poles is between 4 and 5 feet. Ask a friend to set out a row of five trotting poles at your horse's normal and comfortable distance, and trot your horse over them from both directions. When the horse is comfortable doing this, increase the distance by 6 inches and trot over again, using your legs to stop the horse from putting in extra strides. If this feels relatively easy, increase the distance again, but be careful the horse does not put extra strides in between poles. Use the aids in the previous step to encourage the horse to lengthen over the poles.