What are your tips on teaching a horse to spin?

cool question. i have the perfect article for you.

the horse should be efficient at collecting, moving his shoulders, rear, and ribcage. he should have a soft mouth, which stems from a soft body.

here is his site: http://www.craigjohnsonreining.com/training.html

here is the article: http://www.craigjohnsonreining.com/spins.html

remember, its not the speed that matters. the horse will develop his own rhythm. whats important is for it to be flat, not a lope gait.

edit - make sure that your horse can achieve good lateral movement, where he really tries to pick up his body and his shoulders. then, if im having a little trouble with his spin, i will do some lateral movements in the direction im spinning, either a half pass, or a side pass (just picking up the ribcage) to help him pick up his shoulder. i'll then settle back into my spin.

edit- ron, thats why forward motion is important. if you follow the article that i sent you, after a while this will happen. his hind end will start to drift out of the spin. what you want to do at that point is ask for once step of the spin and chase him out of it (forward motion). one step and out, one step and out. when you try and hurry this part, your horse will turn his whole body around. remember not to hurry it. if you do that exercise you can have a pretty good spin in a matter of 2 months or so.

ive had a couple horses that swung their rear end around BAD. now this fix is only if you know what your doing, but i would get after them and gallop them out of a half spin about 4 times or so, to get them thinking forward. then i would go back to step, walk on, step walk on. pretty soon they just wanted to stay in one spot and spin. it doesn't help to kick the horse really into the spin. if he really needs help moving his shoulder around, i'll move the rib cage around for about 10 minutes, and then go back. once i feel the horse really reallly try with his shoulders, i'll be done for the day with that exercise.

one more thing: never reprimand a horse in the manuever! always come out of the maneuver and pick up the pieces where it went wrong. if the horse has a problem mosying along, with no forward motion, im not going to kick them in the shoulder to go faster, im going to let go of the spin and gallop them forward for about 2 minutes and then go back to it. its ok if the horse is a little alive feeling after that. after all, thats what i wanted.

Teaching a horse to spin isn't very hard, if you break down each "mini" cue of a spin then its easy to understand. I'll try to go from the riders hands to their feet teaching a horse to spin.

With the hands.

Say you want the horse to turn right. you'll want the right rein tight and you'll want the left rein on the neck. This way it once the horse understands you don't have to pull on the right rein.

Legs.

This one is a little bit more tricky. With your left leg you need to be at your horse's shoulder. With your right leg you'll want it towards the horses hips. Why do this. With tapping on the shoulder your asking for the front legs to move, a crossover with the hip your asking that the back end with move the opposite direction. It sounds strange but this is the beginning of a spin.

Putting it together this won't come over night

You'll want the horse to walk into a circle each time you go around make the circle smaller and smaller. When the horse's front end crosses over then let it walk out of the spin, its a reward. After a while it'll come together Good luck

Its best to consult with a good reining trainer who has experience with such things... Allot of them will let you pick thier brain just because they love the equine world...

Also its better to use a trainer since they can see the horse through fresh and very experienced eyes and know what will work best which you may not since you don't have the experience they do...

Good luck

Hire a pro to do it, or the horse will just turn his whole body around.

ummmmm well my dad was the one how taught my horse sooo i cant help srry