How do you keep a horse from anticipating the stop?

Anticipation of the stop develops when the horse learns that running down the pen always ends in the same way — a stop at the same location, cued by the same sequence of events, every time the rider runs toward the end of the arena. Once the horse has mapped that pattern, it begins executing the stop before the rider asks, which produces early stops, bracing in the approach as the horse prepares, and a horse that is mentally ahead of the rider rather than responsive to the rider's cues. The prevention and correction are the same: never let the rundown always mean the same thing. Sometimes lope through the end of the pen and continue without stopping. Sometimes transition down to a trot or walk before reaching the stopping area. Sometimes circle away at the end of the pen rather than stopping. Sometimes stop at the beginning of the rundown rather than the end. The horse that cannot predict whether a rundown will end in a stop, a transition, or a circle learns to wait for the actual cue rather than the location or the speed. Varying where stops are asked throughout the training session also helps — stopping from a circle, from a slow lope, or from an unexpected direction removes the rundown as the only context in which the stop appears. The horse that encounters the stop cue in many different situations learns to respond to the cue specifically rather than to the environmental pattern that preceded it. A horse allowed to anticipate the stop consistently becomes increasingly difficult to rate in the rundown because its brain is already at the stop before its body arrives there.