6 Rein-Handling Tips in 6 Minutes (SNAFFLE BITS ONLY)

Okay, here’s Rule Number One from now on and forever… Every single time you pick up those reins, I mean every single time, you need to have it in your head before you ever even touch them that you are going to make a change in your horse. You’re going to make either a change in the leg speed or you’re going to make a change in the direction of those legs or both. So if I pick up these reins, I am committed to changing either the direction of the legs or the speed of the horse. Because if you don’t do this, if you get in the habit of simply picking up the reins and it doesn’t mean anything… I pick up the reins and I drop them… you burn out your cues. After a while, picking up the reins means nothing to the horse. And that’s a cue — picking up the reins — that you want to protect. So get in the habit, from now and forever, of only picking up those reins if you’re going to change leg speed or direction or both.

When you hold the reins and you’re asking for pressure with one particular hand, you should have your thumb in an upward position — so you could point upward if I asked you to, okay? Just remember, it should always be this… never this… never this… You always want, when you’re holding with one hand, the thumb up. Use all your fingers because you have the most strength, should your horse suddenly pull, when you have all your fingers gripped on those reins.

When you’re at a dead standstill on your horse, that’s a bad time to ask it to turn. It’s just like your car. You don’t want to ask your car to start turning from a dead standstill when you’re sitting there at the light; you don’t pick up the steering wheels and just start turning. You wait till you put your foot on the gas pedal and you ease forward a little bit, then you put your hand on the steering wheel and start asking for your turn. The horse is the same way. You can break all kinds of rules once you’ve been working with this horse over a period of time and you both have an understanding — but to begin with, make things easier on both you and your horse. Don’t ask the horse to turn, don’t put pressure on the reins, until you’ve asked the horse to start. Get the horse moving first by picking up your reins lightly into neutral, then ask your horse to walk forward, and then ask the horse to turn.

Most of the time that you’re going to be training your horse, you’re going to want to use one hand primarily on the reins. So you’ll have one hand that’ll actually do most of the work… Let’s say if I was turning to the right I would use the right hand in a direct rein fashion to ask the horse to turn to the right. The left hand would simply help out. Let’s say I didn’t get close enough to the horse’s mouth or I was too far back from the horse’s mouth. The left hand would help the right hand pull the rein into the correct position. In a two-hand exercise. Both hands do pretty much exactly the same thing. They’re held at the same height. They apply the same amount of pressure. They move and release together. They’re mirror images of each other.

When you do have an exercise that calls for two hands working together, then grab the reins with both hands… put your fists together… and bring them directly out to the side. Drawing your hands out to the side brings them closer to the horse’s mouth. And then you just bring them back again. You’ll create a loop or a droop in between your hands where slack has been created. Then you want to bring your arms back directly towards your body, your elbows back to your sides, and apply the necessary pressure. When the horse gives as you’re requesting, when it… when it does whatever it is that you had in mind — maybe it’s a backup — maybe you’re going forward and asking it to stop — maybe you’re asking it to slow down — but when the horse gives as you’re requesting, then you can drop the reins back down again, back down around your horse’s neck. Then you want to pause just long enough to hear something, the birds, the cows… what-have-you… anything. Then begin thinking of and planning your next movements before you repeat this entire exercise.

From now, on when you pick up those reins and you’re asking your horse to quote-unquote “give,” to soften, to supple, to bend… any of those, those words that you hear that you want to accomplish… What you need to do is picture in your mind that your horse is made out of glass, okay? Glass doesn’t bend. It just simply breaks, right? Try to bend glass, it just breaks. It shatters into a million pieces. So what you need to put in your mind’s eye is that your horse is made out of glass. And as soon as you pick up the rein and you ask the horse to bend, think in your mind… if the horse was made out of glass, at what point would he break? So… and you can feel it if you put that in your mind. As soon as you pick up the rein. you let go as soon as you think the horse — were it made out of glass — would just break and fall to the ground in a million pieces.

Most of the time, when we pick up the reins and we’re looking for the horse to soften or relax or give, we’re not looking for a lot of bend. We’re not looking for the horse to turn to some great degree. We only want it to soften those muscles. And a great way to keep that in mind, to understand when that’s happened, is to simply picture that your horse is made of glass. Trust me, this tip will make it much easier for you when a trainer or another horse person says to you that you need to “get some softness” in your horse or some suppleness or you need to pick up the rein and get some “give.” It’s a great trick to keep in your head because without even thinking about it you’ll know exactly when to drop those reins. You’ll know exactly when the horse has given you enough “give,” softness or relaxation.