An Exercise for the Challenge of Getting Your Older Cutting Horse All the Way to the Ends

Have you ever had a cutting horse that was difficult to get to the ends, especially at a show? This is often accompanied by turns that aren’t too pretty (flips) and then ending up out of position ahead of the cow as you travel across the pen.

The whole thing can feel awful.

The reason this happens is that until you get the hang of staying even with a cow as you travel at all speeds across the arena, it feels like you are suddenly in the south 40 pasture as you travel to the wall. Early on in your learning, the middle of the arena feels safe and the ends feel vulnerable.

Most often when you feel vulnerable, your rhythm will be off.

Because you feel uncomfortable, a kind of freeze takes place with your feet and you quit helping your horse travel all the way to the ends, just when your horse needs your guidance the most.

Then, to exaggerate the negative effect of not going all the way to the fence, it’s easy to get excited as you come off the fence and “beat the cow” through the turn. This happens because you might use your feet too quickly in the middle of the turn. This causes your horse to turn around too fast and out of balance before the cow can “drag” your horse over his hocks smoothly and correctly through the turn.

Here’s a simple exercise that will help you and your horse by reminding you both how to travel on a straight line from one fence to the other, and then stop at a 90 degree angle perpendicular to the fence. It will also review the technical turning steps as you come off the fence.

The reason this exercise works is that it gives you and your horse time to get comfortable traveling on a line back and forth across the arena. It also gives you the repetitions to develop an easy rhythm of stopping and then turning in a smooth manner off the fence.

Before I go through the steps, I want to emphasize that this exercise is intended to be done slowly, smoothly, and without jamming your horse. Ease is the name of the game.

Step 1: Identify a line across the arena. It might be from one post to the other, or a shadow across the pen. Tie something to the fence on either side if necessary. Be able to see a clearly defined line.

Step 2: Start in the middle of the pen, on your line, and aim your horse toward your mark on the wall.

Step 3: Walk to the wall and stop smoothly, yet crisply, by sitting deeply first, and then use your hand(s) to stop at a 90 degree angle to the fence.

Step 4: Rock your horse back on his hindquarters immediately when you stop by taking a step or two backwards.

Step 5: Pause and breathe. Pause and breathe. Pause and breathe. Pause and breathe. Slow down here but still keep your horse’s weight loaded on his rear.

Step 6: Rock your horse back again, and with either two hands or one, roll your horse SLOWLY over his hocks, ending up on the line when you get to the other side of your 180 degree turn.

Step 7: Walk to the other side of the arena with your eyes on your target destination.

Step 8: Repeat the above steps when you get to the wall.

Step 9: When you are comfortable doing this at a walk (be patient!), try it at a slow trot.

Step 10: Just do the exercise at a trot. Resist your inclination to run your horse to the ends and pull him hard into the ground and turn him around fast. You will miss the powerful effects of doing this exercise as described above.

As you repeat this exercise, you and your horse will find increasing levels of comfort and correctness in going from the apparent safety of the middle of the pen to the south 40 on the ends.

Then, when you work a cow your job will be to just stay even and in rhythm with the cow no matter where you are in the arena.

When you have to go out to the walls, you will utilize the same travel and stop and turn pattern as you practiced in this exercise. But this time, you will be at ease as you help your horse across the pen, sit and wait for the cow to drag you off the wall, allow your horse to turn smoothly on his own as you let the cow drag you through the turn, and then help him stay even again.

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