When you’re riding, the sequence of your aids should always be seat, leg, and then hands. You want to try to use as little hand as possible when you ride but the truth is, your hands and use of the reins have a big influence on your horse and it is important to consider the different types of rein aids and how and when to use them.
Let’s look at a few ways you use your reins when you ride:
· Passive Following Rein – For the majority of the time you are riding, you want to maintain a soft, steady contact with the reins. Your hands should be in front of the withers, a fist width apart, with a straight line elbow to the bit. You want to have a light feel on each corner of the mouth, with the feeling of three to four ounces of pressure in each hand. The key to having a nice, steady contact like this really has to do with your following elbows. As your horse’s neck moves, you want to follow that movement with your elbows – this will create a steady contact and allow your horses to move freely and in the correct way.
· Softening of the Rein – As you’re riding around, you might want to give the reins to reward your horse or to test their self-carriage. Usually, you will only soften the reins for three or four strides before taking back the contact. It’s most common to give the inside rein while maintaining steady contact with the outside rein, but giving both reins is a great way to test your horse’s self-carriage.
· Restricting Rein – At certain times, you might need to use your reins to restrain your horse (give a half-halt) and ask them to come back to you and slow down. Of course, first, we want to use our seat (slow motion of hips, and tighten our abs) before we use the reins to back up those aids. To give a retraining rein aid, you will slightly bend your wrist and turn your pinky finger inward and upward on the outside rein to half-halt your horse.
Anytime that you use your reins, you always want to make sure that you have and maintain a straight line from your elbow to the horse’s mouth. This is what we call a direct rein aid. You may, at times also need to use an opening rein and (where you bring the rein away from the horse’s neck) to help turn your horse. Remember, though that you always want to use your seat and leg first before you use your rein and always get back to your passive following rein contact as soon as you can!
I hope these tips help give you an idea of the different ways our reins are used when riding! Check out the video where I have my GoPro camera on in addition to my regular camera as I’m demonstrating each use of the reins! Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below!
Happy Riding!
Amelia
P.S. Want to learn more about contact and the rein aids? Check out my Free Contact and Connection Mini-Course!
