Some great advice from Coyote Ridge Ranch on your spin

Clayton and Sabrina Stadnyk are the owners of Coyote Ridge Ranch Performance Horses in Manitoba Canada. They not only raise top notch cutting, ranch, reining and working cow horses but they are also top “hands” when it comes to training their quality prospects and finished horses. Be sure to check them out at Coyote Ridge Ranch for some super nice horses for sale and be sure to check out some great advice from Coyote Ridge Ranch on your spin…..it will make a huge difference in your horses. Here is what they have to say.

“First off, we would like to mention that these are not our original thoughts and would like to give credit to master horseman Peter Campbell whom we’ve been riding with for a combined 16 years.

If you feel your colt “wallowing” around a bit in the turn, not getting that back foot set to pivot on and he’s pivoting in the middle of himself in places. If he knows HOW to spin, but he’s having trouble GETTING READY to spin this might help you.

That’s where we see trouble happen with people and their horses…..in the “getting ready”. It’s like getting ready to going to work, we just can’t jump out of bed in the morning, hop in the truck, drive to work and start working. We have to get dressed, brush our teeth, do the hair, pack a lunch, start the diesel to let it warm up, get to work, turn the computer on, make coffee….all those things that we need to do to get ready, the horse has to do the same when we ask him to do something. Even when your horse goes to lie down and to roll, he’ll search around for the perfect spot, then he gets ready to bring his legs under himself, the nose goes on the ground, then he folds his legs up and plunks himself down..we can come up with a hundred examples of getting ready…..but we’re sure you get what we’re getting at.

We know that a reiner spin is different from a cutter turning. The way we understand it, the reining spin is forward momentum/energy while the cutter turn around is backward momentum/energy. Both have to start the same way (more on that later), with the weight shifted back to get the weight off the front end, so the front legs can move—when the weight is on those front legs, they can’t move. It’s when the horse gets correct in the getting ready, that you can add the speed in the spin to get the momentum shifted from backwards to forwards. It’s all about getting the baby steps correct to get the big picture correct.

To start with we would go back to either the snaffle or the bosal. Nothing wrong at all with switching back to the snaffle or bosal even if you have your horse in a bit already. Get him set up to spin by getting him to shift his weight back, he dosen’t need to actually move backwards, but he needs to shift his weight back. Then he needs to look the way he’s going to turn. We see this so so so much it’s not even funny…a horse can’t properly go to the right if he’s not looking right–or left..whichever way. Again, we wouldn’t be wanting anything huge, but his attention needs to be towards where you’re wanting to go, so jiggle your left foot to get his attention to the left or run your hand ever so slightly down the rein to the way you want him to go so he can get ready to go that way, he will look that way. It’s something we would keep enforcing. So, shift his weight back, get his attention to the way you want to go, then ask with your leg to start the turn, then help him stay turning correctly by using your reins. Get him to start correctly and the rest is easy….’cuz he knows how to spin already, he knows where his feet need to be. Even if you just do random turns….like walk a bit, stop, draw to set the weight back, ask for his attention, then turn say 3/4 of a circle, stop, walk off/trot off, stop, draw, attention the other way, turn 1 1/2 circles etc etc. It dosen’t matter how many turns we do if it’s not correct….take the time and help the horse to make it correct.

I would go about fixing any problem this way….set the horse up to be correct in whatever you want him to do, and it gets pretty hard for him to make the mistake. But if he does make the mistake, just stop, take a second and start again.”

This is some excellent advice offered from this great husband and wife team and I look forward to working on more blog posts for you all to enjoy in the future so be sure to check back and see what we come up with next and take a look at the nice prospects for sale at Coyote Ridge Ranch