How do I sit a reining stop?

Sitting a reining stop correctly means staying with the horse through the deceleration rather than being left behind it or tipping forward into it, and the body position that produces a correct stop and allows the rider to follow the slide is specific and must be practiced until it becomes automatic. As the stop is asked, the rider drives the hips slightly forward and downward — not a dramatic lean back, but a deepening of the seat that allows the hips to absorb the deceleration while the upper body remains tall and upright over the horse's center of gravity. The legs drop long and the heels push slightly forward, not in a bracing grip but in a position that allows the rider's weight to sink through the leg rather than grip up with the knee. The hands remain quiet and relatively low, applying rein contact only as needed to support the seat cue rather than pulling back as the primary stop mechanism. The most common error in sitting the stop is tipping forward from the waist — the upper body breaking at the hips and leaning toward the horse's neck — which shifts the rider's weight to the forehand at exactly the moment the horse needs its hindquarters under it. A second common error is bracing the leg forward so aggressively that the rider is pushed back rather than staying with the horse's motion through the slide. The correct feeling is of the rider's weight sinking down through the seat and leg while the upper body stays soft and tall, flowing with the horse through the slide rather than fighting against it. Practicing the position at slow speeds — asking for stops from a trot and a slow lope and focusing specifically on the body position rather than the depth of the slide — builds the muscle memory that holds the correct position automatically at faster speeds.