Riding off an opponent

Christian Moon recently wrote some great tips/techniques for improving your ride-off. I like Moon’s advice because it’s the first time I’ve seen the ride-off technique explained so fully, and succinctly. 

Before we go any further, I want to strongly recommend that you read the official USPA rules regarding ride-offs/bumping before you even begin practicing. The safety of the other player, and their horse, should always be a primary concern to you when executing the ride-off.

Now that that’s out of the way, here’s Moon’s advice: 

When riding off, change your horse’s lead to the opposite one to the side your opponent is on. As you draw up alongside your opponent and when you are at the same speed and shoulder to shoulder give the aid to change leads to the side your opponent is on. The momentum of the horse changing from one diagonal to the other will usually win the ride off. If not then you need to maintain that sideways momentum with lots of leg and the rein to keep the horse moving sideways. Remember that a ride off MUST be shoulder to shoulder, same speed, and that bumping a tired horse on a fresh one is also prohibited.

When schooling the horse for this it helps to have the horse perform a lead change without you throwing your weight to the side of your new lead and therefor unbalancing the horse. Horses hate to loose their balance and so will loose confidence if you change leads this way. As you can imagine the horse needs to be full of confidence when you ride off so if you have one that is “chicken” then you can start at a walk and have it “win” ride offs against a fully trained and confident opponent. There is no need to pull the made horse off the chicken since that will teach the made horse a bad habit. Instead try to get your chicken to push before the made horse pushes. In the end they can just push against eachother without necessarily loosing ground on either side. having said that it is an advantage to be able to pull away from your opponent in an emergency so be aware that if your horse begins to stick to your opponent’s you will have to teach it to pull away.

Changing diagonals to initiate the ride-off is great advice as not only does it keep your horse well-balanced, but it gives you an advantage in leverage, particularly if your opponent is between you and the line of the ball.