How to Properly Use a Riding Crop

What Is the Purpose of a Riding Crop?

Carrying a riding crop seems pretty straightforward, right? You hold it in your hand and use it when your horse isn't doing what it is supposed to do. Well, not exactly.

Primarily, the whip should just be an "extension" of our leg. If we ask our horse to go forward and he doesn't respond, we can tap him with the whip in the same way that we use our leg.

Why and When We Use It

If we ask our horse to move over and he doesn't respond, we use the whip in the same way that we use our leg to encourage him over.

If he spooks at something and needs encouragement to get past it and our leg isn't enough, we can use the whip to encourage him. If he bucks and our leg isn't enough to keep him moving forward, we then use the whip.

The Riding Crop Is an Extension of Our Leg

You can probably see a theme here, right? I hope you can! The theme that I hope you can see is that we use the whip as an "extension" of our cues to help our cues be just a little stronger and assert ourselves.

In teaching beginner riding lessons, I see a lot of kids that are having trouble getting our old lazy school horses to move. When I give them a crop,