hi it's josie and today i'd like to share with you how to hold the reins and how to use them
our reins are a very important communication tool with our horse and that communication is a two-way
communication i can hear and feel from him through the reins and he can hear and feel from me through
the reins so for that to happen though there needs to be a consistent connection with the horse
and the reason i'm telling you this is because that is why we hold the reins in the way we do
so that there is soft and supple communication with the horse's mouth it's not about being hard
on his mouth the way you hold the rein is vitally important for that so we're going to run through a
few things here we'll just come in nice and close and we'll look at my hand you have some joints one
two three in your hand the first thing i want to tell you is that your rein should sit down
close to the palm and on this first joint here of your hand so it goes between your ring finger
and your little finger like that it goes up and it should as i said be over those joints there
it comes out the top now you close your hands around the reins oops i'll just make sure i'm
not going to pull on rebel's mouth you close your hands around now you don't squeeze in there and
make a fist because as soon as you've made a fist everything is tight this needs to be
supple so that there is a little bit of give and take on both ends i expect my horse to have a nice
supple poll and a supple mouth and a supple jaw so therefore i am required to have supple fingers
supple wrist supple elbows and supple shoulders it works both ways and so it's very important for you
as a rider to learn to have your arms and hands like they need to be before you even think about
how you're going to control your horse and get a contact because if you don't have that
it won't be a correct contact so the reins sit over that bit your fingers close you don't dig
your i'm just gonna take my glove off here because i think it shows it better
so the reins go in here so i don't have my fingers dug in like that but the pads of my fingers just
sit nice and softly there because i want you to go you can do this when you're sitting there
watching this video you might do that and feel how tight your hand is and then just rest the pads of
your fingers on the palm of your hand whoops i've got my little finger in there and see how
much softer that is so much softer your thumb is uh sits on top and that's actually what
holds your reins and stops them slipping it's not a big strong pressure it just sits there
and it stops the reins from slipping you don't need a lot of pressure you're not supposed to
have your thumb flat flatten your thumb and feel yourself you'll feel all of that tighten there i
can feel it really tight there's no suppleness in my wrist for my horse when i just bend and
place it lightly on top my whole hand feels supple how much tension do you have in your
fist to hold the rein sally swift said it best i think it's a great analogy for me is think of that
you've got a baby chick in your hand and you don't want it to get away but you don't want to squeeze
it and kill it either you just want to gently hold it there so that it's not going to run away
then when you want to give your horse rein aids you literally once you've developed this
and you can have a nice connection with your horse's mouth you're only required to do that
that is how i give a rein aid i think i've got a sponge in there and i squeeze it and release it
squeeze it and release it now a lot of people ride like this with their hand open thinking that
they're being soft with their horse's mouth and i understand their thought process there but that
actually just gives the horse white noise so if i'm trying to have a conversation with the horse
and i've got an open hand and sometimes the um the feeling is there and sometimes
it's gone because the hand is open the horse is getting this sort of that that
a bit like when you're on your mobile phone and it keeps dropping out so when your fingers are closed
gently so you don't kill that bird you have got a nice solid communication line to your horse so
one thing i particularly notice when i'm teaching people is they might have their
hand like that but their little pinky is open and just floating around you need to close
your little pinky as well you need to have your whole hand closed your rein over and your thumb
just resting on top not flat not up not pushing down really hard either because if you push
you feel all the tension it just sits there when i want to give a rein aid to my horse perhaps i want
a little bit of flexion or i want to say excuse me we're going this way i will go excuse me we're
going this way this way this way this way if he doesn't listen to me i will actually just tip my
wrist in a bit more so if i squeeze my ring finger i've taken about a half an inch centimeter and a
half perhaps i'm not really sure but i've taken a bit of length off the rein if he's not listening
to that when i turn that in in this hand here i've got a lot of pressure okay so you don't
need any more than that on a horse's mouth if he's not responding to that pressure you need
to go back and teach him to give to the pressure but that's beyond the scope of this video today
so if you watch my right hand here as i come off the track at b warning him
saying come this way come this way come this way come this way come this way you can see
so hopefully you saw that i indicated for the horse to come around onto the circle i'll do it
again in case you missed it so i'm holding my hands rebels rebels holding his end of the bit
coming here i'm going let's go this way this way this way this way look how much i can move the
his nose just by my ring finger so when you're riding along and you've got both hands closed
thumbs on top and you're riding it feels very weird without gloves and you want to shorten
your reins how do you do that if you've got a good contact and connection with your horse
you don't want to drop that contact you don't want to drop that connection you want to keep
that particularly if you're riding in a test and your horse is on the bit and you're going well
but your reins have gotten a little bit long and you need to shorten them the last thing you want
to do is interrupt that beautiful connection that you have with your horse's mouth so what i do and
how i was taught to do it is i take the rein that i'm going to shorten under these two fingers here
and just hold it and then i slide my hand down and then i'll do the same thing here and then i'll
so that in the process of putting that rein into that hand i can keep exactly the same connection
on my horse's mouth you should be able to drop a rein and keep the same connection so now my
reins are far too long i need to shorten them i'll shorten the outside rein first ring there
there and i did not change the feel on rebel's mouth one bit let's do that again so now my
reins are far too long put both reins in one hand keep that soft feel there slide that down
both reins in one hand pick that up shorten my reins without playing with the contact
i hope that helps if you've got any comments please leave them below i'll be sure to answer
them anything you'd like me to do a video on i'd also love to do that if i can see you later