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I think your talking about, you ask your animal for a specific task and they refuse, even tho they are well versed in it?

I demand that task then, whatever it takes. My mule will periodically "forget" that he can lope under saddle, with a subtle positioning of my leg and a kiss. He actually did that last weekend at a preformance. I ended up having to DQ myself to get it because you can't ever let them get away with it ANYWHERE.

So when those things happen like the above, I work for the specific task I asked for. I actually just went back to 2 hands, came back around and set up him and made him do it.

Now if he is lacking focus and just ignoring me all together, then yeah, I do make him shoulder in and out at all gaits, frame up, pivots, sidepass, diagonals at all gaits etc. He doesn't usually do that too often anymore because God forbid he should expend more energy than required.

I'm not a big circling person because I feel it gives them too much thinking time as they go around and around. But I have been known to do it depending on the situation.

If my horse doen't do what is expected of him or refuses then I will make him flex around my leg, do tight circles, turn on the fence, back up and then stand there. I'll ask him again to do the task, if he refuses then I start over again untill he does the task. It usually only takes one time and he finds out it is easier to do the original task the first time. If I am at a barrel race and my horse messes up, I will not correct him unless I am doing a practice run. When I get home, I'll take him to the arena and work him. I just don't belive in correcting them infront of everyone at a barrel race. You see those that will beat them right in front of you and I just can't stand that. NO, I don't beat my horse but to me corrections should be done at home.

Had that problem this morning on my mare where she knows not to cut across teh arena unless I ask her , and she kept vering off, so everytime we were going and she would veer off I would turn her iin for about 3 circles and then I took her back to the same exact spot where she started to act up and redo it and if she obeyed she got praise(my mare is a sucker for praise-lol) and if she did it again,went back to the spot.It only took a couple times for her to understand what I was asking of her and she caught on real quick ,so we ended up on a great note.Just keep reinforcing it, whatever method works best for you and yor horse.Best of luck:)

i stop my horse and make her back up like 5- 10 steps. she hates when i do that. yesterday she had a ton of energy due to not being ridden for 4 days cuz i was vacationing. i trotted her most the time but she just couldn't resist loping. i stopped her and made her make several times. probably same thing today but little less.

ummm i do alot of dressage like leg yeild, piaffe travers etc... with my young ones i do alot of gradual work like going on the bit etc