© 2005-08, Keith Hosman - All Rights Reserved

We clinicians teach "handling of the reins" in a particular order and emphasize certain aspects because we repeatedly see a pattern of "universal truths" from one rider to the next.  We see this and we see opportunities to make marked improvements fast.  Students don't realize how much pressure they're applying, that they never release, that they're actually rewarding poor behavior, etc.  They're mad, the horse is mad – and they pay me to put on a black and white striped shirt and blow a whistle.  "Stop fighting; go to your respective corners."  This stuff is simple – but there's a pattern to it, a flow and rhythm.  If you're having issues with your horse – or just want to improve as a rider, give this material a whirl.

You'll find five tips – each with "your handling of the reins" as their focal point – each guaranteed to make your friends at the barn wonder if you haven't inked a deal with the devil.  This is the material I cover most often, the stuff I hit the hardest, the concepts I believe to be the most important, the undercurrent running through the rest of our training.  While I won't specifically deal with the mechanics of handling your reins, ("Hold them like so") the material covered will change the way you think and so will ultimately effect the way you do hold, release, etc.  Bottom line: You'll improve much faster if you first understand the "why" behind the "what, when and how."

A) Every time you pick up your reins from now on – each and every time – I want you to first put it in your head that your horse is about to do "whatever" perfectly.  He's the perfect horse not after he does something, but before.  This is due to a phenomena that's really rather obvious: If your horse has been fighting you for three days on that turn to the right – we as humans naturally assume he won't do it on day four either.  So, what do we do?  We grit our teeth and pick up the reins with eight million pounds of pressure to force the issue or to "be ready."  However... your horse, being no dunce... thinks to himself "Every day this guy tries to rattle the teeth outta my head.  I've gotta be ready."  And so he sees you going for the reins and protects himself by clenching everything from his teeth to his butt.  Good luck with your turn.

Instead, put a smile on your face and get it in your head that he's about to do (something) perfectly.  You do this on things you've practiced a million times; you do this the first time you practice something.  Whether he's been doing sidepasses for ten years or you've never before introduced the concept, you'll pick up the reins and "assume" he's about to fly fluidly to the right or left.  If you pick up the rein to turn, assume he's going to soften his neck, round his back and step like a champ.  If he's never backed six inches in his life, you'll pick up the reins and assume he's going to scoot backwards like poop outta goose.  Why?  Because your horse can only get as light as the lightest pressure you apply.  Start with twenty pounds and you'll always be at twenty pounds.  That's an important concept, one you should underscore and repeat out loud.  Plus... trumpet flare please... giving your horse the benefit of the doubt puts an end to adversarial relationships.  It kills that vicious cycle of "act-react" with you and your buddy the horse so the two of you can concentrate on improving your skill set.

If or when your horse ignores your request, THEN you can amp your pressure or back up your request with further motivation. This leads us to...

B) Never pick up the reins without first formulating a back up plan in your head, a "What I'm Going to Do if the Horse Ignores Me" plan.  This is also known as the "Don't Paint Yourself into a Corner" plan.  How many times have you seen somebody ask their horse to back up like this: They pick up the reins, pull and grit their teeth.  The horse plants his feet, grits his teeth and stands there.  Finally, the human gives up and releases the reins.  The horse smiles and learns to ignore pressure.  Have you seen riders kick and kick and kick horses that won't move – only to finally quit kicking and shrug their shoulders?  We're all trainers and this horse has just been trained to ignore the kicks.

Instead, before you even pick up the rein, have a back up plan.  In the case of backing up, tell yourself that you're going to ask the horse to move his hindquarters two steps to the right (or left) if he won't take a step back by bringing your hand out, away from the horse then to the opposite shoulder.  (They hate disengaging, making it a great motivator.)  With the horse that freezes up, be ready with the same disengagement – or promise yourself that you'll keep up the rein pressure even as you dismount and smack him on the butt.  Think out of the box and do whatever it takes (within common sense boundaries).  Just have a back up plan so that your horse can never ever choose the option of ignoring you.

Another example, perhaps far more common, is this: You pick up the rein and ask the horse to lower or turn his head.  He ignores you, throws his head up or pulls away.  Your back up plan in these cases requires a win-win for the both of you.  You could give up and release the reins and he wins.  You could use a bigger harsher bit and you'd win (till he learns to ignore the pain).  Or, you could release – and therefore reward – on the proper thought.  It works like this: The longer you apply pressure to those reins, the less the horse has to do to gain a release.  That is, if you were hoping the horse would drop his head four inches and he drops his head four inches inside of two seconds – great, he gets a full release on those four inches.  However, if twenty or thirty seconds go by and you're facing an impending stand off, then you need to find something, anything, to release on.  Something that allows both you and your horse to "win."  At two seconds I'm going to release on 4 inches.  At ten seconds I'm going to release on 2 inches.  At thirty seconds I'm going to release on any softening in the neck muscle whatsoever.

Be on the lookout for the following habit, it's something I've noticed quite a few riders doing and a quick way to lose your horse's respect: We get so concerned about "not releasing" till the horse does something perfectly, that we walk around and around, with pressure on those reins, for not seconds, but minutes.  Newsflash: Your horse is either playing you for a chump or doesn't even know you're making a request.  Either way, he's telling you you're not applying enough motivation.  When you find this happening, the remedy is this: Kick harder, try a little more pressure, maybe a new angle, kiss like you're losing your mind – just do something, anything, to change the status quo; do something to let that horse know that something is expected and "dawdle" is not it.

I would suggest that you play a little game.  Have a friend stand nearby and count "one thousand one, one thousand two..." as you ask the horse to drop his head (turn his head, take the proper step, whatever, fill in the blank here) giving you exactly five seconds until they scream "TIME!"  When they scream, you're done.  You lost.  Put down the reins, gather your thoughts and try again.  Yes, we're temporarily releasing at the wrong time – but it's more important that you learn to make something happen now, rather than later.  Why?  Because being carried around in circles nagging your horse is costing you tons of respect.

Will you be able to get your horse to drop his head inside of five seconds when he's been fighting you for twenty minutes?  Probably not.  But this trick of forcing a rider to force an outcome will teach you to become more active.  About the third time your friend reaches three, you'll find yourself kicking harder or disengaging the hindquarters or whatever it takes to make something happen.  Try giving yourself those five seconds about ten times – then shoo your friend out of the arena and return to business as usual.  But now you've lit a fire; now you'll "make it happen," rather than "wait for it" to happen.

C) This is the common, but WRONG way to pick up the rein and ask your horse to do something: Pick up the reins, pull with eight pounds of pressure, realize he's ignoring you, drop the pressure to zero as you move your arm to another angle, pick the rein back up with 6 pounds, lose focus and allow your pressure to drift from 4 to 2 to 14 pounds until you get aggravated and increase it to 112, jerk it several times (200 pounds minimum), get off, go have a cigarette.

Did you ever see the movie "Top Gun"?  Did the jet roar off smoothly before taking off, gaining speed smoothly and evenly – or did it hop like a kangaroo and jump off the carrier?  Answer: Smooth and fluid. When you pick up the rein, begin with virtually no pressure (beginning where we want to eventually be, as described above), a second later you can respond to the pressure you're receiving from the horse and evenly increase your pressure.  Do not, under any circumstance increase and decrease your pressure like the aforementioned kangaroo jet.  Practice consistency.  Try this: Pick up your reins as if to ask your horse to back up.  Immediately stop and memorize how much pressure you first exerted.  Now, practice as if your very life depended on it, keeping the exact same amount of pressure throughout your maneuver till the horse does as you request.  If you need more motivation, try to get it from harder kicks as opposed to jerking on his head.

There are a couple of exceptions here with this "consistent pressure" business.  If you ask the horse to turn his head and he's ignoring you, then sure, try a bit more pressure.  (I said "a bit," not "a ton.")  And if that doesn't work, make him disengage his hips, as previously discussed.  Note that this is a matter of finding out how much pressure is right for a given moment – as opposed to forcing something to happen by sheer force.  Just remember to keep your pressure fluid and consistent once you do pick it up.  We want to annoy the horse in the way that a big sister annoys her younger brother, not cause pain by jerking the reins.  Think of it this way: If I tied a rope around you and jerked it, it'd be hugely irritating and would probably hurt.  If I tied the rope around you and gradually increased my pressure, you'd still be annoyed – but not in pain.  See the difference?

The other exception is the "mini release."  For our purposes, it boils down to this: Let's say you're teaching your horse an exercise that has several steps within the exercise.  "Hip-Shoulder-Shoulder" is a good example.  We ask the horse to pivot on its hindquarters, to put its head forward and then to back up; that's three movements that need to be linked together into one.  We'll teach these steps independently, with full releases, say, when the horse correctly pivots.  But, when we begin to sew it all together, we don't want to completely drop the reins and pick them up at each interval.  Instead, we pick up the reins with a certain amount of pressure, ask the horse to pivot then ease up a bit on the pressure (our "mini release") as it does.  We still keep the reins in our hands so the horse knows he's not finished, something more is expected, but the slight release of pressure tells the horse that the thing he just did is something we were looking for.  Another example: You're on the ground, teaching the horse to back as you advance toward him.  In this case you would pick up the rein with x-pounds of pressure, release some of that pressure when his neck drops and softens, then release fully as he takes a step back.

D) Force yourself to get in the habit of taking a pause in between each and every request when teaching a maneuver.  When your horse takes a step and you release the rein – don't immediately make another request (when initially teaching an exercise).  Drop those reins, walk forward a few steps, relax your seat and take in your surroundings.  See, the quickest route to a trained horse is making things simple, right?  We break things down into simple concepts and if the horse has trouble understanding we break it down further. However, when you don't release those reins, take a breath and pat your horse but instead immediately apply pressure for a repeat of the step, the horse sees no clear line between the beginning and end of this exercise it just goes on and on and on just like this sentence.  To make my reader understand, I use paragraph breaks, commas and periods.  Pauses and breaks. You need to teach your horse in the same manner.  Picking up the reins, getting the step and releasing teaches the horse that's it, that's all you're looking for. Picking up the reins, getting the step and then mindlessly requesting the step over and over for an hour makes it impossible for the horse to discern what it is you're looking for and makes him quit trying. So give him a break, literally.

Find a cool, business-like rhythm: You pick up the reins, get the release / softness / movement and drop the reins, take a break for several seconds, then repeat.  Or, you pick up the reins, wait a few seconds (without getting the proper step), then apply your back up plan (perhaps a disengagement, as described above), then release, take a breather and repeat.  Bring your friend back into the arena.  Show him/her exactly what you're looking for ("I pick up the reins, the horse drops and bends his head to the left," for instance) and then begin your practice.  Your friend, who understands what it looks like when the horse has complied, should then interrupt you with something like "How's the kids?" "What's your favorite color?" "Who was LBJ's vice president?" (Hubert Humphrey) Anything he can think of.  His job is to distract you long enough to throw you back into neutral, giving your horse a break and teaching you your timing (that is, when to work, when to take a break).  The key for you is to understand that your friend's interruption is serving a purpose. When he asks you if you caught last night's game, or prefer cats over dogs, that's the moment when you should be "being carried around" by your horse, not pulling on his mouth and overthinking.

If you don't have any friends, do what I do: The moment your horse softens or takes his step or whatever, release the reins, quit riding and listen for something.  Anything.  If you're near the road, listen for traffic sounds.  If you're in an arena, listen for the buzz of the lights or the chatter of other riders.  You get the idea.  Forcing another "sense" to activate forces you to take a breather.  With a more accomplished horse-rider team, you may not see these breaks – but trust me, they're there or they wouldn't be a more accomplished horse and rider team.  When you're first developing this habit, you may take a break for three seconds. Once you develop this habit and it's become ingrained, it might be something simple, quicker and more subtle.  With practice, you can simply stop riding or ease up on the reins, however briefly, to tell the horse "that's it, there."  The key is consistent communication.

E) A quick note about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and their role in our training: As every horse has two distinct personalities, so should you.  Have you ever noticed how sometimes your horse tries and sometimes he doesn't?  The green horse you see spinning around the round pen looking out over the rail, is decidedly NOT working with the trainer.  The horse who runs home (after walking begrudgingly out to the trail) is NOT working with his rider.  The horse who takes a look at you and your halter and turns tail is NOT working with you.  Your horse's attitude is something you should be constantly gauging throughout each training session because that attitude tells you what yours should be.  It determines how long you hold your reins, how much pressure, how often you make a request, how specific you'll be.  Simply put, if your horse is giving you the bird, introduce him to Mr. Hyde.  Use more pressure on your reins, expect things to happen now rather than later, kick harder; be more exacting.  Be a drill sergeant.

By contrast, when the green horse starts keeping his two eyes on you in the round pen, when the experienced horse softens his neck for a moment longer than you've asked as if to say "What's next?," when any horse at any time simply becomes more focused on you, then we've got a horse that merits much more patience on your part.  Channel Mr. Hyde. (He was the nice one.) Give them more time to get something right, use less rein pressure, kick more sparingly, be quicker to offer a "benefit of the doubt."  In short, turn into your grandmother.  Should your horse's attitude drift back to the dark side, simply react in kind.  Being aware and adapting to these two distinct personalities in your horse by rolling out your own good cop and bad cop will help you maintain a sound relationship with your horse while maintaining his respect.

About the author:

Keith Hosman: If your horse won't speed up, slow down, stop or turn, you missed the latest training methods from Josh and John Lyons.  Have you lost your confidence?  Want a horse to brag about?  Invest one weekend to make big changes with John Lyons Certified Trainer Keith Hosman.  Keith is based near San Antonio, TX and is available for clinics, private sessions and training.  He frequently conducts clinics and demonstrations — with an event coming soon to a town near you. For more horse training articles, or to attend a clinic or find a John Lyons trainer living in your area, visit horsemanship101.com now.  

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