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Do You Know What It Means to Moderately Extend the Jog?

By Dan Trein in The American Quarter Horse Journal

What is the moderate extension of the jog supposed to be?

Simply what it’s called: It’s just a moderate extension of the jog. We put enough extension to it so that there’s a notable difference.

However, with this gait in a western pleasure class, you won’t see the level of impulsion as you would if you asked that hunter under saddle horse to trot ahead.

A Little Bit of Flutter

We like to sit back a little more and use a “flutter” or bump with the legs to ask the horse to extend. We might use or add a verbal command.

When we want to back off the extension, instead of fluttering the leg, we take the full leg down around and underneath the rib, so the leg comes up against the body, and the horse comes to associate that squeeze with a slowdown.

If our horse surges forward at that point, we restrict and restrain his face with our hands. But we’re not going to demand or command so strongly that the horse is intimidated and the face goes behind the vertical. If the horse yields, he gets a reward: We soften that hand control. But we might still keep that wrapped leg so he understands what we’re trying to do.

The Comfort Zone

For me, the comfort zone relates to how knowledgeable a horse is.

To help a horse gain training stability and confidence, I ride him with a little bit of contact. I hold him in my hand, and he ultimately understands to yield at his face and throatlatch. It doesn’t mean he’s snapped and jerked behind the bridle, but it does mean that as I ask him to go forward, as a training technique, I don’t release his head completely.

When a horse resists, say if he’s going from the jog to the extended jog and he overreacts, to me that means he’s not in a comfort zone. My repetitive response to that would be to accelerate into the extended jog but hold him in my hand and get him to yield into the bridle and stay there.

American Quarter Horse Association
1600 Quarter Horse Drive
Amarillo, TX 79104

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