jog

[No_Angel]

with the jog, am i aiming for a smaller, slower trot, or do i need to do anything else??

[Keket]

You're looking for a nice relaxed gait. Very flat as well in the movement. For instance, in a collected trot, a dressage horse takes short, slow, collected steps, but this isn't what you're looking for, as it's usually accompanied by higher knee action. A jog should just sort of saunter along with no real effort from you or the horse. Now it won't be effortless at first because you're teaching something new to your horse. Keep a nice even rhythm.

A tip for differentiating between jog and trot for your horse: Use the same aid (for instance, we cluck our tongues and squeeze with the leg), but let the strength of that aid dictate which gait you want. For jog, it's a very low cluck and a slight squeeze, for trot, it's a louder cluck and a stronger squeeze. Depending on how I ask, I get jog or trot. Like my RI always says: "If your aid is fast and strong, you'll get fast and strong. If it's soft and quiet, you'll get soft and quiet." :)

Hope this helps.

[KarinUS]

I think the main thing you will be concerned about is that if you slow down too much the horse can get the gaits muddled up. Trot in front and walk in the back (or was it the other way around?). Bixby and I do this sometimes when I ask her to slow down too much and we need to work on this...

[Jessey]

Yep, generally a smaller trot, smaller stride length, less upward movement and less effort, often the horse won't track up fully when jogging. Its a very relaxed gait, just kinda bumbling along :D

[No_Angel]

ill have to get mum to film me, he was going beautifully yesterday, lovely and comfy, and very slow for him, we were jogging around cones and over scary tarpaulins:D that bosal is a miracle, he loves it.

[mommadog1956]

thanks for clearing that up. i've been wondering about that myself.

back in the 60-70's, during western pleasure classes, we only had walk, trot, canter. so getting back into riding again, i've been hearing jog. was very confused........