How to Correctly Apply Pressure and Release of the Reins 

If you follow my work at all you will know that I am an advocate of first and foremost teaching horses to follow the feel of the reins LONG before worry about directing them with my seat and legs. I use my seat and legs in turns only in a way that does not hinder the ability of the horse to follow the feel reins. The reins give me meaning to the seat and legs much later in the training. But early on a horse must first learn to follow the reins. The reins are much more effective in directing a horse's thought than seat and legs. It is much harder to teach a horse to follow a thought using seat and legs if they are not excellent at following the feel of the reins. Directing a horse with my seat and legs comes much later after they are already brilliant with the reins. Watch Ellen in the video. Her seat and legs follow the green horse, not direct the horse. After only a few turns with the inside rein ALONE, Raffie is able to give a really balanced turn at the very end. When this becomes a normal response, THEN Ellen will teaching him to be direct-able from her seat and legs (but never lose the brilliance to the reins). You'll note that the video really refers to horses learning to follow the reins with their thought. In most of those cases, an abrupt and complete release of the reins does kill communication. I see it all the time. The horse is not asking the rider "what are we doing next?" There is no conversation. In any case, even if you disagree with that point, there is no need to release to the degree that there is no feel between the horse's mind and the reins. You just need to release the reins enough to be below the threshold pressure that a horse interprets you are asking something of it. I ride a lot of horses at clinics each year and come across a lot that can be ridden from seat and legs, but they are never good at it. They get shoved around with the outside rein. They ALL just move their feet and never change their thought - even dressage horses training at GP level. I believe the misunderstanding of the role of the seat and legs is a problem in the horse world which I am fighting in a small way to correct. Sorry about the sound quality. I wanted to get this video out and I'm in an AirBnB in Arizona and don't have my proper equipment with me. Thanks for your thoughts.

@@RossJacobs I do follow some of the stuff you do, and regularly send my viewers your way to understand something that I'd like to explain but you already have. I think it's fine to teach reins before body but the time given between just reins and then body and reins is where we tread different paths. I don't have the opinion that reins are more effective on an educated horse and there are plenty of examples on the internet to show it. Here's where we may be thinking of different timelines though. In the short game, yes, reins are more effective, but the long game shows that we must get accurate and the horse be accurate with the body to reduce or even remove dependency on the reins. I did see the rider following the horse with her body but not leading, which is again where we differ but again it may be a timeline thing. In the beginning this is appropriate but it shouldn't be long at all (even within the day of) that the body should start leading to prepare the horse and in turn make the reins that much more effective. So I do see what the video is about and completely dropping the reins CAN be seen as a drop in communication, and as we see in the video it would be the case as the rider tends to just stare at her horse the whole time and not where she wants to go or relies on any other thing at all to communicate with the horse, which I believe is a very ineffective way to communicate and ride with a horse and ride effectively. You've given an example that backs up your argument, which is appropriate but somewhat cherry picked in a way. Not to say it isn't common.... but I would hope you can do a follow up to cover a bit more as this could be a more effective video with options maybe. In other words, the eyes can lead a horse to what it should do and in turn that is a continued conversation, just like on the ground. As for you riding horses and watching horses get shoved around, that's a completely separate subject, looking forward to you talking about that too!

@@StableHorseTraining I agree that it is a timeline issue we are having. I rarely see horses make enough change to the way they work from the reins to be able to then move onto following seat and legs in less than several weeks (and sometimes many months or years). I think this is because I am extremely focused in changing the horse's thought and less concerned with their feet. This is far more demanding on communication because it is relatively easy to direct the feet, but when it comes to directing the thought we are always competing with the rest of the world for a horse's focus. So if I am releasing the reins for a change of thought, and not just the feet, it takes a lot longer to establish a solid and consistent pattern in a horse. With regard to looking down at a horse, I know most professionals have a problem with this. They feel a rider should look where they are going in order to communicate where they are going to the horse. I have never agreed with this. Many people need to look down at the horse because even though they can feel the feet moving they are not adept at feeling a change of thought. But looking at the horse they can see much clearer the tiny nuances that indicate the horse has changed its thought. Secondly, I have never found that looking at the horse to hinder making my intent clear. Neither have I found the rider's intent to be clearer just because they were looking where they were going. Many first class riders look down at their horses with great success. Nuno Oliveira most readily comes to mind. I think it is another one of those ideas that sounds good, but doesn't actually hold up to scrutiny in my experience.

Ross Jacobs wonderful explanations!!!!!!!

@@RossJacobs I agree with your first paragraph outside of how long it can take. I think we have both left out "how much" and are relying on "time". If we were to refer to hours, or consistency and of course quality, I would imagine we'd agree better. It's ok to disagree with most of the horse world, I recognize that it's actually your "thing" when doing horsemanship from your viewpoint as you regularly disparage other "professionals". Which unfortunately is kind of unprofessional I think, but it's neither here nor there for that as we all have the choice to take opinions with a grain of salt and an open mind. It's your channel and are obviously free to speak openly as it's participatory to show up here. In fact it's really good to have so many opinions out here on RU-vid so people can pick and choose what they want from somebody. I agree that it's hard for beginners to feel down to the horse without looking at them, this is akin to groundwork too which is hard to do if you're not looking at the horse. Again though, the parameters of the conversation keep shifting. I think it's fine for some famous people to look down at their horse while riding, but I imagine they did NOT do that the whole time while learning and in fact may have learnt to ride blind if they were so brave. Losing a sense heightens the others and should be encouraged. Having that extra feel can really push through some boundaries that are limited by the ability to see, I'm sure you understand what I mean. So in the end, it's like learning to do anything, first you get really good at not doing something to get something done, then you get to play with that and be "lax" in a way to do something. In the beginning though, it's important to be dedicated and strict I think, which is something that I see you as encouraging to do and promote often.