A.  To disengage your horse is a psychological move for your horse. Most people think that all it means is the horse moves his rump around his front quarters but it is much more than that. To do a correct Disengagement of the hindquarters your horse has to be mentally and physically soft.

When the horse does a disengagement and is moving his rump to the right his left hind leg should be crossing over his right hind leg. This is where it starts to get into the psychological part and shows you whether your horse is soft and trusts you or not. This is why: For a horse to run away they have to have their hind feet separate and ready to run, if they cross their hind legs they cannot run off. Try it yourself, stand with your legs apart and have your friend try to push you over, it is going to be easier for you to stay standing up. Next try to run off, your feet are in the right position to run off so you can run off easily. Now, while standing cross your legs, have your friend try to push you over, it is really hard for you to stay standing up. Next try to run off, that is going to be really hard also, what you are going to have to do is fix your feet by uncrossing them to run off.

Now, horses knowing that they can’t run off in this position are not going to want to put themselves in that position unless they trust you and are soft in the body. What they will sometimes do when asked to disengage is they will bring their feet together and disengage but never cross, or they will cross there leg behind them instead. So when asking your horse to disengage, make sure the feet are crossing over each other (if you are on the right side asking your horse to disengage his rump to the left, his right hind leg should cross over the left).

A disengagement has many uses.  Here are just two:

1. To get your horse soft and relaxed and trusting in you.

2. To have some emergency brakes while riding your horse.

When your horse disengages, his rump should swing away and his front feet should walk around in a small circle. If your horse is sticking his front feet and not moving them, you are not getting a true disengagement. If he is sticking his front feet (like some teach) he is going to start getting stiff and brace against the move. You want your horse to be fluid and soft. So he should have his front feet moving in a small circle while his hind feet move in a disengagement.

Jill and Cody”

- Hillary from Arizona

A. Horses are herd animals. When in the wild, horses feel safe in their natural herd environment. They are aware that if they leave the herd, they might be eaten by a lion and die so the herd means safety. A horse that is considered “barn sour” is really just scared to leave the herd and its safety bubble. When we take him out on a trail ride alone or even into an arena, it is not natural for him because he is leaving the safety of the herd, or in some cases, if the horse does not have other horses in his herd it is the safety of his corral. So he starts acting like what people call “barn sour”. Which if we all really knew why he was acting this way (because he thinks he is going to die) we would be a lot more understanding, and instead of pulling and kicking and whipping (which is what most people do when a horse acts this way) we would take our time and build up his confidence to go out.

There may be many thresholds between his corral and the arena, stop at every one. The next time you take him out of his corral you will notice that there are fewer thresholds than there were the day before, and so on. There may be MANY thresholds on a trail ride, but if you teach your horse that he is going to be OK and you are going to wait on him until he is confidant then there won’t be as many on the next trail ride. Put your horse first, before your fun trail ride or before your friends saying they just want to ride. Your horse and his confidence in you is more important then anything else!