Photo by Shelby Allen.
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For most people, the first time you experience a gallop is pure accident. A spooked or frisky horse takes off and soon the edge of your vision is turning into a blur and your heart is pounding as you careen around at speed without control. It’s usually a pretty terrifying experience. So, when you start eventing and you have to learn how to gallop– on purpose, this time– it can be intimidating. Learning how to gallop is all about letting go of your fear and tapping into your childhood daydreams of galloping the Black Stallion on the beach.
Let’s throw it back to pony club for a moment and talk about what a gallop actually is. The gallop is not a fast canter. It’s a different gait characterized by four beats, not three. There’s a moment in each stride where all four feet lift off the ground together. The characteristics of a good quality gallop will vary based on who you ask, but at the 2015 USEA Young Event Horse Symposium, it was described as having seven key traits:
- Effortless ground cover
- Rhythm and balance, with no wasted energy
- Adjustability of stride, rhythm and balance in front of jumps
- Quick readjustment of stride length, rhythm and balance after jumps
- Endurance
- Elasticity
- A stride length relative to the horse
When you first start to learn how to gallop, focus more on your position, control, and mental strength before you work on developing a high-quality gallop.
5* rider and Olympian Boyd Martin’s partner, Tsetserleg, is one horse that has had genetic testing done for suitability. Photo by Shelby Allen.
Besides jockeys, eventers are probably the equestrians that gallop the most. While most people consider cross country to be defined by the solid fences, this phase is really all about the gallop. The key to cross country is developing a good gallop that’s on pace between fences, while also having the skill to rebalance into a more uphill stride just before each fence.
Learning your pacing at the gallop is crucial if you want to cross the finish line without time faults. Until you learn what it feels like to be on pace, even the novice speed of 300 meters per minute will feel fast. Once you’ve gotten more comfortable at the gallop, wear your watch and practice staying on pace. But first, let’s slow it down and talk about the baby steps you can take to start your galloping career.
In my opinion, you have to wear gloves if you want to set yourself up for success while practicing the gallop. It’s crucial that you have control at this rate of speed and your horse will start to sweat and the reins will quickly become slippery. If you want the added benefit of extra security in the saddle, wear full seat or extended knee patch breeches for a little extra grip. The added security will make you feel more confident, even if your horse is feeling frisky.
While you’re still developing your galloping position, practice it at the walk, trot, and canter first. You should be able to comfortably stay in half seat and stand straight up in the stirrups while keeping your heels down and ankles soft and flexible. You’ll want your stirrups shorter than their usual length by about an inch or so. Here’s a good rule of thumb to follow from an article in Practical Horseman by Jimmy Wofford, “The faster you gallop, the shorter you have to ride and the more you need to close your hip angle to stay with your horse’s motion.”
You should be able to confidently and securely hold a two-point position without your knuckles resting on your horse’s neck. Don’t expect to develop the strength it takes to hold this position overnight. You’ll need time to develop the strength and security to stay in two-point without resting your weight on your horse.
Arne Bergendahl and Luthien 3. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
As you build your confidence at the gallop, start with a “steady Eddie” type of horse. Don’t gallop for the first time with another horse or you may find yourself an unwilling participant in a horse race. And here’s the real kicker– don’t try to ignore your fear. The “just do it” mentality will only get you into trouble and further degrade your confidence. If you find yourself shaking before you even get on the horse, today is not the day to try to gallop. Give yourself all the time you need to overcome any fear you might have.
Think of your horse’s speed like shifting gears. You can shift gears in all four gaits to regulate the speed. Before you go straight into overdrive and gallop away, practice shifting gears in the walk, trot, and canter. Go from medium canter to extended canter and back again to test out how your horse is feeling. Are they frisky or did you have to kick on? When you feel confident enough to gallop, just touch the lowest gear in that gait to start with. Going uphill on known terrain makes it easier for both horse and rider to test out the rate of speed and get used to the feeling of the new gait.
The right safety equipment can make you feel more confident. Wearing a back protector or body protector reduces your risk of injury should something go wrong. While you should always be wearing a helmet, you may want to wear a skullcap or a helmet that was highly rated by the Virginia Tech STAR study.
What probably evokes the most fear in riders just learning how to gallop is the thought of being unable to stop. A little common sense can help here. While yes horses have much more endurance than your average human, they also get tired. I find the thought that at some point they will get tired and stop, and I just have to stay on until then, comforting in an emergency. However, that doesn’t mean you can just sit back and let your horse gallop until they’re done. It’s just not safe, particularly if you’ve lost steering or are covering unknown terrain. This is why it’s so important to practice shifting gears at the canter before you start galloping. If you know your horse will come back to you from an extended canter, it’ll be much easier to get them back from a gallop.
Nicolas Touzaint and Absolut Gold HDC jump clear to be the best of the French. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Bringing your horse back from a canter is exactly like any other gait. Sit up and back, slow the motion of your body, let a long slow breath out, and half halt the reins. It’s important you don’t clamp down on the reins and pull. Not only is this just plain rude, it also gives your horse an opposing force to pull against. What’s much more effective is to half halt and release, half halt and release, until they gradually come back from a gallop to a canter to a trot, etc. Remember, the horse has a lot of inertia at the gallop. Just like a car on the highway takes longer to stop the faster it goes, your horse can’t stop on a dime.
While galloping is intimidating at first, it just might become your favorite thing to do. As Jimmy said, “Galloping in partnership with half a ton of living, moving, graceful, athletic creature gives me a thrill that I would never be able to get from a pet hamster.”
Go eventing.
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