Great advice. It really helps because I am considering playing polo with my western pleasure horse and getting him out of his slow lope was my problem too!
Now that I've read this properly, how is the lope different from the canter? I thought that the lope was a canter and that the jog is a trot. It seems that we're not teaching the horse to go from one gait to another but just changing its centre of balance and impulsion.
A professionally trained western pleasure horse goes a lot slower than your average horse. The western pleasure is extremely well balanced for their discipline but it's different than your average jumper. So it seems their problem is just trying to get more giddy up, and letting the horse know that it is okay to go faster.
Thanks! This held a lot. My horse, Merlin, was a western pleasure horse and we are training him to jump and he's almost got it except for his long, slow lope that makes jimping look really awkward.