how do u use a wip wop rope?

[moomin]

hi
just wondering if any body could help me , i dont understand how you use a wip wop rope?

[Lucymj]

I have never used one but my understanding has always been that you sort of 'flop' it on the horses quarters to encourage forward movement. Sorry for the appauling choice of words! xxx

[moomin]

thankyou

[Peter & Marjolein NL]

It is a training tool where you need to know the basic principle behind it:

Horse needs to keep going on a leg aid until you say it is enough (instead of giving legg aids all the time). Legg aid only given once. You apply little pressure to get the horses attention. On release of the legg aid the horse schould go foreward until you say stop.
When the horse stops before you told it to, You use the wip wop to get him going again instead of a legg aid (because you already gave him a legg aid to get him going and you didn't told him to stop). The wip wop can be used to give different levels of pressure (from a shake, till hitting your back on a raincoat).

There is a lot more (interesting) to be said about it. Best is to do the IH 5-day course or get some instruction from a local RA.

[Lucymj]

See............ thats what i meant! lol! xxx

[Sutton]

It's used to slap either side of the shoulders from a central saddle position. Makes more noise than anything else,particularly if you hit your boots rather than the horse.

[Oranges]

i seen a richard maxwell demo and he was using one and if i remember rightly he used it behind his leg, tohugh it was a few years back so i might be wrong.

i was thinking about wip wops the other night, can you not make one out of a old lead rope, ith the clip cut of and i knoted at the end?

[annabelle h]

No, please don't use a lead rope!! It would be much too hard and not visible enough.

The wip-wop is intended to have a visual effect (on the horse's peripheral vision, when you flip it from side to side) and create a little noise (eg if flipped against your riding jacket). It's NOT for whipping a horse and causing pain/discomfort. In fact that was what it was designed to get away from.

If you hold one in your hand you will see that they are made of incredibly soft material, if you hit yourself as hard as you could with it, you would never come near to hurting yourself - it's too floppy. Try that with an old lead rope and you will notice quite a difference in pain level! :-)

Peter & Marjolein above gave a good explanation of how to use the wip-wop to train the horse to go forward from one leg aid and keep going forward until asked to do something else (instead of leg-leg-leg every stride). The idea is to do something surprising when the horse stops, so that he understands that he is meant to keep going.

So at first you would give one leg aid and then relax your legs and see how far the horse will go without stopping. He will probably slow down to an absolute crawl but that's fine at this stage -all we want him to do is keep moving forward, however slowly. Guess how far round the arena you'll get without any more leg aids before he grinds to a halt. Eventually (and it usually takes longer than you might think) he will come to a complete stop and that is when you'd use your wip-wop (which you have handily around your wrist).

When he finally stops completely, turn into a bit of a crazy person. Keep your legs and seat pretty still, but flip that wip-wop around like there's no tomorrow - ideally not hitting the horse with it but using it to slap your torso and shoulders to make a noise and so that he sees the wip wop flying around in his peripheral vision. As ever, it's important not to get emotional and think that he is "bad" to have stopped. A good way to do this is to say in an exaggeratedly surprised voice "I can't beleeeeve you stopped!" - which feels a bit silly, but it's impossible to get annoyed with your horse when you're being silly.

The fact that you have just turned into a flailing nutcase is likely to surprise your horse into walking forward again, and the instant he does, you need to turn back into the sane, quiet, still rider you normally are. Let him walk on again until he grinds to a halt and repeat the flailing nutcase part, again stopping the instant he moves forward. Each time you'll find that he will do more laps of the school from one leg aid. And there you have a horse that has become more sensitive to your leg.

Strongly recommend getting a lesson from a Recommended Associate to ensure you have the timing etc right so that it really works.

HTH,

Annabelle

[Yann]

i was thinking about wip wops the other night, can you not make one out of a old lead rope, ith the clip cut of and i knoted at the end?

I've done just that, I used a fairly thick rope and tied the knot at the right length for it to drape comfortably across my torso when I don't need to use it. Unlike a proper wip wop it could cause some pain if used hard enough (have tested it on myself and it would have to be pretty hard), but surely that's up to the rider to avoid? It has the advantage of not having to be carried on the wrist if you don't need it and works in exactly the same way, if I need it swinging it round myself so it smacks on my body protector is usually enough.

My local RA gave me a tip for particularly stubborn horses, which is to tie a plastic bag to the end, or even a small pop bottle with a bit of gravel in to really help get their attention and get them moving

[Flic]

Interesting. I just found toda what i thought was a wipwop for £4.50! I dint buy it but am thinking of going back for it. Does it work well on very nappy horses? for £4.50 im tempted to give it a go. what do people think about it with nappy reary bucky beasts? would it work?

[Yann]

It can certainly help, though you need to look at the reasons why they might be behaving that way of course. My horse used to stop and sometimes plant on the way off the yard and at certain points on hacks where one way led home and one didn't. I tried various things including hitting her with a whip, which often got her going but didn't do anything for her attitude or our relationship ( clever welsh x mare ) and made her resentful. Using a wip wop style thing got the same result without the resentment, and seems to have actually made things a lot better. We rarely have any issues at all now, unless there's something scary in the vicinity of course.