Riding Part:3

  As you know last week we talked about riding at a walk. This week I will tell you about riding at a trot. The trot is a two beat gait. In it the the horse moves his legs diagonally. The trot is the most bouncy out of the four gaits. You can either sit the trot or post. In western riding it is called the jog and you usually sit. In English riding it's called a trot and you can either sit or post. Posting is when you rise up and down in the saddle with the horses movement. This is the most comfortable way to ride the trot but if you plan to do dressage you need to learn to sit the the trot as well. There are three main trots. One is the basic working trot which is an average medium pace with a medium stride. Then there is a collected trot which is slower and has shorter strides. Lastly there is the extended trot which is the fastest out of the three and has the longest stride. To ask for a trot you should get your horse into a walk and gently squeeze his sides with your calves again to send him into a trot. In the trot you might want slightly shorter reins so you have more contact with the horse since it is a slightly faster pace. Well this is all you need to know about the trot next week we will talk about the canter.