How do you keep a horse from anticipating rollbacks?

A horse that anticipates rollbacks — beginning to turn before the stop is complete, leaning toward the rollback direction, or showing tension that signals it is already executing the maneuver mentally before the rider has asked — has learned that a stop always leads to a rollback in the same direction, and it is responding to that predictable pattern rather than to the rider's specific instruction. The correction requires removing the predictability from every element the horse has learned to use as a cue. Do not always rollback after stopping: sometimes stop and stand quietly for a moment before asking for anything, sometimes back three or four steps and then stand, sometimes walk straight forward after the stop rather than turning, sometimes turn the opposite direction from what the horse is anticipating, and only sometimes perform the rollback the horse expects. The horse that encounters a stop and then receives any number of different instructions learns to stand and wait for the specific cue rather than immediately preparing for the anticipated maneuver. The direction of the rollback should also be varied in practice so the horse does not lean toward a preferred side — sometimes rollback left, sometimes right, and sometimes neither. The timing within the stop matters too: a horse that begins to turn as soon as its hind end settles has not learned to stand through the stop and wait. Asking the horse to stand squarely and quietly for a beat between the stop and the turn teaches it to separate the stop from the rollback as two distinct events rather than one continuous sequence. Over time, a horse trained this way waits at the stop with genuine stillness because it has learned that stillness is the correct response to the stop cue, and only a specific additional cue from the rider initiates the turn.