Stacy Westfall - 2011 freestyle reining champion at the American Quarter Horse Congress

I just wanted to share this awesome video with everyone. Hopefully everyone is familiar with reining, it is an event at WEG and people are campaigning to get it in the Olympics as well. Watch her amazing run, which was done bridle-less! Stacy is famous for her bridle-less riding and  I was lucky enough to be able to watch a couple of her clinics at the 2010 Mane Event in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. One of her hour-long clinic focused on stopping. Her biggest take-home point? Most horses stop based on some combination of voice, seat and reins. If you take away any of these, the horse won't stop, or at least not as well. Stacy trains her horses to stop 100% on each of these cues individually. Then if she takes 1 away (like the reins), she still has 200% to guarantee her a stop. I think this would be good for people who trail ride as well, just for the safety aspect, in case you lose your reins or are hanging off the side of the saddle. Anyway, enjoy the video (it's not mine, I borrowed it from YouTube from chavaux84)!