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This is an extended trot. You do this in dressage a lot. Hunter's do it too in flat classes. An extended trot is sapose to cover more ground without neccessarily getting "faster".
This is a collected trot. When you do a collected trot, you are looking for the horse to shorten its stride, without getting slower. They tend to raise their feet a bit more off the ground.
This is an extended canter. It's just like the extended trot, where you want a bigger stride without getting faster.
This is a halfpass. It is where you ask the horse to go forward and sideways at the same time. The horse has to cross over its legs in order to acheive this movement. There also different angles you do this in, and in each angle it becomes something different. The half pass is where the legs on the same side meet in the middle on one line, and the other two legs create their own lines on the outsides of the middle line.
This is a passage. This is where the horse is in a collected type trot, but does not move forward barely at all. He collects his trot and trots almost on the spot. It is a very showy movement used quite a bit in the higher levels of dressage.
This is a horse in a collected canter. Dessage has a lot of collected canter in the higher level tests.
This is a horse doing a pirouette. A pirouette can be done in trot or canter when it is collected. It is a turn on the haunches, but the horse is in a collected trot or canter. The horse has to pivet on its one back foot, while moving around it on the spot. The horse does not move forward.
This is a girl doing a jumper course. Jumper courses are typically heavily decorated to distract the horse or catch its eye. The jumps are painted very brightly to also catch the horses eye, and sometimes create and illusion to the horse to scare it. Good jumpers are ver quiet, and nothing scares them. Jumper courses are also typically higher. Courses in the trillium level in jumper usually start around 2foot9inches, and go up from there. Grand Prix riders jump about 5foot5inches. Jumper is timed. When you do the first course you have a time limit that you need to be under, and if you knock down a rail from the cups, you do not get to move one. If you go "clear" and under the time aloud, you go on to the jump-off. The jump-off is timed and once again you want to go clear. Whoever has the fastest time and lowest number of rails down wins.
This is a girl jumping a hunter course. Hunter is judged on how the horse moves through the course, and the form of the horse over the fences. It is also judged on the riders form. The judge is looking for a horse that has a nice long even stride throughout the whole course, that does not get faster or slower. They also want to see a horse really bring up its knees and tuck its legs underneath it. The rider should release with the hands to give the horses head room to move when it jumps and come off the horses back so the horse can become round over the fence.
This is a man riding in a hunt seat class. This is most common in breed shows and western dominated shows. It is pretty much western pleasure in english attire. The horse just moves more forward in each of the gates. The trot should be long and forward and so should the canter, covering a good amount of ground without extending the gate. The horses head should be held lower than its back, just slightly.
This is western pleasure. Western pleasure is all very slow. In western the gates are called by different names. The walk is still a walk, the trot is a jog, and the canter is a lope. In the jog the horse is covering very little ground, and moves very slowly with a shorter stride. In the lope, its the same as the jog, you go very slowly covering very little ground. All the three gates seem to go the same speed, no matter which gate you are in.
Now this is trail. Everything is the same as western pleasure. The only different thing is that you go through an obstacle course. Here a girl is going over the bridge. you tend to do a lot of bridges, opening and closing gates, going over poles, and backing through poles. It is very technical when you get good at it, but its just fun. The judge wants to see the horse stay calm cool and collected through every obstacle.
This is reining. This is what I want to do now. I am going to do some western pleasure and trail too, but this is my goal. Reining is like the western dressage. It is very technical and precise. This is the slide part of a reining test. You gallop your horse down a line and sit back and say whoa. The horse then stops hard and lets its hing legs slide under it, almost sittin down. The front legs let the body move forward while sliding. I can't wait to slide!
This is a reining horse spinning. In reining a horse must spin in both directions a specific number of times in a row. They spin very fast and stop very fast. The reining spin is a lot like the dressage pirouette, except it is not performed in a collected trot or canter. The reining spin is started from a complete stand still and is not a jog or lope, nor is it really walk. The horse just crosses over its front legs very quickly propelling it into a very fast spin.
