Posting trot is not easy to do well – you have to coordinate your seat, legs and hands and stay in tempo with your horse!
But, posting trot has a lot of important benefits – it is very important for the warm-up, and on a young horse or a tense horse as it allows the horses to carry the rider more easily. You never want to bounce on your horses back as bouncing will cause the horse to get tense, hollow, and stiff in the back.
Here are a few tips to help you with your posting trot:
1. Feel the tempo of the trot and your posting has to go exactly in this tempo. It’s really important that you are exactly in the tempo with your horse. Count out loud if you need to – “up, down, up, down.”
2. Pay attention to how you land in the saddle. It is really important that you land softly in the saddle. It is helpful to think about the last 10% as you come into the saddle and slowing your post down so that you land soft as a feather in the saddle.
3. Be sure to post on the correct diagonal. – “Rise and fall with the shoulder on the wall.” This helps to put your weight over the horses’ inside hind leg and to bring the horses’ shoulder around in turns.
Here are some of the common mistakes in posting trot:
1. Lower leg swings back and forth – in posting trot, many riders tend to swing their lower leg way back and kick the horse when they land in the saddle, and the lower leg swings way forward when they come out of the saddle. Your lower leg should stay stable below the knee in posting trot, think about rotating around your knee and keeping your leg stable from the knee down.
2. Hands post up and down – if you don’t bend and straighten your elbows, your hands will post up and down with your seat! You have to bend your elbows as you come into the saddle, and straighten them as you come out of the saddle so that your hands remain in a steady position.
Hopefully this tips are helpful! It is so important to get good at posting trot so that you can properly warm your horse up!
