Teaching Horsemanship – Learn to Handle Your Reins

At a riding clinic, teaching horsemanship is often a matter of making a few small changes in the way you train.  Case in point:  From here on out, 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 when teaching your horse, however briefly, “that’s it, there.”  The key to natural horsemanship is consistent communication.