Dressage—Cross Training for All Breeds and All Disciplines “Riding Back to Front, Part 5”

By Lynn Palm

      In the last article, I discussed how to “talk” to your horse with your leg aids. In this final article of the series, I will explain how the proper use of rein aids controls the horse as your ride him “back to front.”

    Rein aids control the horse from the withers to the poll. This area, called the forehand, is one of the three “control” divisions of the horse, and it includes the head, the neck, the shoulders, and the front legs. Specifically, the right rein controls the right side of the head and neck, the right shoulder, and the right front leg. The left rein controls the corresponding parts on the left side of the horse.

    There are five rein effects in riding, but we will deal only with the two most important ones—the open rein or direct rein and indirect rein (called neck rein in western riding). It is absolutely necessary to learn not to pull! Correctly learning the rein aids will allow you to control the horse’s forehand with a lightness of aids, and you will thereby teach your horse to happily respond to your rein aids.

Open Rein
    Open rein is the rein effect in which the horse gives to the pressure of the reins by flexing his head to the right or to the left (without breaking at the poll). The action involved in the open rein is that the hand moves sideways from its correct, normal position and not back toward the rider’s body. In order to get the complete sideways action of opening your hand and bringing it sideways, you must turn your hand to where your thumb it still the highest point of position and your fingernails point toward the sky or ceiling of the arena. This turning of your hand will bring your elbow close to your side and help you learn to do a sideways action of your rein communication.

    When using open rein, you will find that the horse will position his head with feather lightness in the rein. You must learn to use a pulsating or vibrating tension while using the hand aid and never a steady pulling action. This is the way you will learn what a response to lightness of rein aids feels like at the same time you teach your horse what it means to respond to lightness. If you are not feeling this lightness, it may be that you have turned your hand to where the knuckles are on top and your elbow is away from your side. You will feel more tension or steady pulling action in the hand, and this gives the horse something to lean on and pull against—the opposite response to a light aid response.

    The open rein is used to keep your horse straight while going straight. It also is used while initiating a curve or turn, and it must be maintained throughout your curve or turn.

Indirect Rein (Neck Rein in Western Riding)
    The action of this rein effect is that the horse yields or moves away from the rein touching his neck. The action of your hand with indirect rein should be the same as open rein. Your hand should move as if you are turning a doorknob as the hand comes toward the crest of the horse’s neck. This action of the hand will allow full contact of the rein against the neck from the top to the bottom of the neck. Again, the action of the hand should be pulsating or vibrating and not a steady pull against the neck.

    The action of indirect rein keeps the head from flexing too far in a curve and keeps the shoulder from bulging outward. The response of the horse to indirect rein is he moves away from the rein pressure. It is used for turns or to yield. The most common faults in using the neck rein are letting the knuckles become the highest point of the hand, which ends in pulling, or letting the hand cross the crest of the neck. If you make these errors in your use of the aid, one or more of these actions may happen: the horse resists, there is heaviness in the aid, the horse pulls, or the horse if off balance because you are pulling his head to the outside.

    When learning these two rein effects or teaching them to an unschooled horse, your natural tendency will be to watch your hands. If is important to remember to keep your eyes ahead or in front of the horse and learn to see his head and neck with peripheral vision. When you look at your hands, you lose the feeling of lightness.

    To sum up what you have learned in this series on riding “back to front,” aid coordination between a rider’s legs and hands is absolutely essential to the rider’s constant responsibility of controlling the horse’s body position (spine) while riding “back to front” to obtain the horse’s balance. This is true for each and every action the rider asks the horse to take.