I’ve used draw reins over fences before. It was a situation where we were seeking the ability to engage something deliberately and with finesse (so martingale options were out - we wanted to have the capability to initiate it and then release it) due to some learned behaviours on the approach to fences. It was initially a pain defense but once the problem was treated and diagnosed, the behaviour had become habitual. It probably took three weeks (two seasons a week of a jump school over low fences - one a trainer and one was me in a lesson with said trainer) for him to realise that he wasn’t hurting anymore and didn’t have to be defensive. I never had another issue with it again (and my draw reins have been stored for the last twelve years).
That is the problem. They see it as normal to use then use it on a lot of horses. It would not be necessary to use it on half the horses if the horses were trained correctly.
The same horses if swapped at these places. The ones being ridden in draw reins would now not be ridden in draw reins. The ones not ridden in draw reins would now be ridden in draw reins. The trainer putting on the draw reins are doing it because it is easy, not because the horse needs it.
Draw reins are another tool in a trainers tool box. They have a time and place. Mine personally leave my tack locker less than a dozen times a year. They are always attached at the billets.
I’ve personally never used them over jumps. I’ve seen it done plenty. In the right situation I would use them over smallish fences. That said, I haven’t run into a situation that I felt that the benefits out weigh the risks in 22 years training professionally.
Oh come on.
Unless you are riding bridleless, you are using your reins.
'The art of using the reins is learning how not to use the reins. ’
Ok, I’d like to see the training book that brings a horse up the levels and teaches him how to go straight down a line without using reins.
Has one of the masters written a book on reinless training that I have just missed?
It is the masters that can ride without reins. The anecdote in Franz Mairingers book who rode at the SRS of having to ride a stallion in a field as the horses were moved for a strangles outbreak.
A steam train came past. The stallion went beserk and galloped uncontrollably around the field.
The next day the train was on time, like they always are when you don’t want them to be. The stallion went beserk.
The master kept yelling,“You are holding him to much”.
They swapped. The master sank down into that saddle. The stallion tried to get away. He could not. All he could do was canter on the spot. The master placed the buckle on his neck and let go and said, “See I told you, you were holding him too much.”
Another anecdote about a master taking on a horse very hard in the mouth, retrained him and rode him with a piece of string to the bit.
I had a lesson on my mare when I was a working student. I can still remember it. I had to knot the reins on her neck. I had to keep her round with my seat. Half pass was magical and from seat alone with no legs. I went down the centre line tracked right, turned right and halted at x. I was supposed to keep her round for 4 seconds. After 2 she snapped out of it and put her head up and looked round.
I was injured the next week and told I would never ride again from doctors.
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I had been working there for 12 months riding 8 dressage horses a day, 4 in lessons, before I could do that.
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No I can’t do it now. Yes I am riding again.
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I wouldn’t ever do any serious jumping with draws on but I think popping over some little cavalettis in them can be useful.
Sure. On horses they have previously trained. WITH REINS.
Nobody, not even Steinkrauss, is training horses without reins.
This could, perhaps, be why books upon books upon books have been written about the contact, which sure seems like a lot of fuss about reins if nobody is using them.
Initially, on a very green horse the opening rein is very helpful, but it is at all times backed up by the riders’s leg and seat. eventually the rein can usually be dispensed with as an aid but used more as a soft communication.
The desired roundness is unfortunately usually asked for too soon in the horse’s physical development.
The American Indian would never have survived buffalo hunting, did he not go reinless. It doesn’t take one “school” over another. just the ability to ride.
At the end of the day, I learned it was far more effective to let her fight against herself by running into their action when she tried to shoot her head straight up in the air before shooting sideways than to get overly forceful with my hands.
Wouldn’t a martingale be more effective for that?
I apologise. I went off on a tangent as you asked a specific question.
I apologise again.
The saying ‘the art of learning how to use the reins is learning how not to use the reins’ has nothing to do with riding without reins.
What it refers to is that you no longer use reins to ask for downward transitions or turning.
These 2 things can be done on a loose rein, in long and low and in collected reins.
It also refers to riding back to front. Not front to back and you never pull back on the reins. You prove the inside rein and bring it back to where it was. You don’t bring it back further. You can loosen and tighten reins but not pull back.
Unless something untoward happens and then you do whatever you have to do to not break the first rule, which is don’t fall off.
You ask for a canter walk transition with your seat not the reins, whether you are holding reins or not. You don’t throw the reins away to do it. But you do not pull on the reins for the transition.
We all know that it is with turning your head a horse will turn. You turn your head, which turns your shoulders and can turn your hips.
This can be done on lower level horses as well as upper level horses.
Hubby is riding a novice horse. No laterals yet. He was having a problem with Sim bulging in a circle in canter. No amount of telling him to look where he is going. Use his outside aids. Outside leg, rein, elbow, shoulder, knee, calf works with him.
I tell him to halt. I get him to drop the reins and do aeroplane arms and twist from side to side. Something we have all, including him, have done on the lunge.
I give him back the reins and tell him to twist like that next time round.
Low and behold no bulging. Sim came around on the circle without him using the reins. It is so easy. He was still holding the outside rein and giving the inside rein. Still using his inside leg into outside rein.
Of course the twist is slight but I had him exaggerate it the first time to show him how it works and to give him a lightbulb moment.
Laterals can then be done with seat, still holding the reins and not throwing them away.
A youngster started is started without reins for forward and calmness, but the seat and legs are still used. You will not see a master pulling a horse around a corner with the inside rein.
Horses learn so much faster than riders. Horses started by masters have an advantage over horses started by ammies.
This leads to the saying that you wreck your first horse. This simply means that each horse you get will be better, as it started with a better rider than your last horse.
I am not a professional horseman, being able to ride many horses a day to develop the right reflexes.
I would never jump with draw reins because I do not want to die. Of course I have MS and I cannot rely on my body to give the right response every time.
But I would never let any children under my control to jump with draw reins, they just usually do not have all the reflexes that experienced (as in over a decade of experience jumping) adults develop.
If anything goes wrong and the rider does NOT RELEASE the draw rein properly over a jump, or heaven forbid gets left behind and thus yanking on and using the draw reins to keep on, I can see the possibility of a rotational fall as the horse does not have the use of his head.
Professional riders, or amateurs with a lot of experience, do what you need to do to get the results you want. The problem is with less experienced riders doing it because if the pros do it it MUST be all right.
People have been copying winning riders for a long time and it is not going to stop.
I do not understand why so many riders continue to jump horses when they are not going 100%.
It would be better to train the mare to go without spooking and any fighting without sidereins.
You want a horse who wants to do what you want to do. Not a horse that fights, spooks, shoots their head straight up and go sideways. Instead of slapping on side reins, listen to the mare and what she is trying to tell you.
Try a different type of training instead of putting on a bandaid.
And if the behavior only occurs when jumping?
Low fences with draw reins (run through a running martingale or a breast plate) is a way to use a tool. Nothing more, nothing less. Can be useful in the right hands and the right situation.
Then more training is needed. Trot poles, cavellettis, grids. Poles on ground instead of fences. 4 jumps on a 20m circle.
The trouble here is thinking that draw reins are okay. So blase that being put on once a week with a day off, if one day a week. It was said that horse goes happily in them. What they are actually feeling is forced helplessness.
So blase about using them that they come onto a forum to tell others that they can be used and can be used for jumping. It doesn’t matter how many people have come on here to say that it is dangerous. Nothing will change until the rider’s thinking changes.
…and as I said above if we swapped horses the mare would come here and never be put in draw reins again. I have retrained horses broken necked from draw reins, market harbourerers and running martingales tied in knots.
How long until my never puts a foot wrong gelding both on the lunge and under saddle is put in draw reins?
Especially if told that he was sold as he could not be ridden if he was not ridden 3 days a week. There was no elaboration on what he did, but I was told that he always bucks on the lunge. He bucked on her at a Cross Country Day training and it is not a normal buck but one where he leaps right up into the air and bucks and he is cold backed and will buck on the first step if he is not warmed up properly to the girth.
Draw reins are a tool just like anything else. I’m sorry that you don’t feel comfortable using them, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessary to attack other posters’ training methods that work for their horses.
Edited to add: many of the comments on this thread illustrate that people don’t know how to use draw reins correctly; when used properly, they shouldn’t be tying the horse’s head down or restrictive, there’s a take and give to release pressure like with any other rein, and when engaging the draw reins, there needs to be a lot of leg to back it up. If you’re using draw reins to crank a horse’s head down, you’re not using them right - but I can understand how that misconception can convince someone that they should never be used in any situation.
I don’t use them very often and never used them on my mare, but there were certain horses like @Mac123 has experienced where having the draw reins there, if needed, was very helpful on certain days.
I don’t see where people have said they don’t use draw reins as a tool. What they have said on this thread is that they are dangerous for jumping and not necessary week in and week out.
I have used draw reins when I was first beginning on Pepper as we were learning together and it helped him get the concept of what we wanted. 5 minutes and they were off again. That is how effective they are.
Later in life I was having lessons weekly on a Grand Prix Dressage horse. In one of those lessons I rode in draw reins.
This was a lesson horse that had lessons with different levels of riders, he was starting to do something he shouldn’t. If being ridden solely by his owner they wouldn’t have been needed.
Look at a photo of youself on your horse riding in trot with contact. Which part is the highest? If the poll is the highest and you have a happy horse you are riding correctly. Know the difference between a horse going along happily and one that is going along out of forced helplessness.
If your horse is not happy it is up to you to change it, the horse can not. It can be anything saddle fit, feed, turn out, the way they are ridden or the equipment used.
If the top of the neck is the highest and it is not a cresty stallion, that is known as broken necked. It is incorrect.
We actually don’t care if you want to ride in draw reins weekly and ride a broken necked horse. It is totally up to you, just don’t get blase that it is normal and something that you can come onto a forum and go back and count the number of very experienced people who have said no dont do it, it is dangerous and shout them down to say it is a done thing and completely safe.
ALWAYS think of how you can do something safer.
In my experience, gadgets may have a quick fix but in the long run it takes longer. … a lot longer. JMHO.
Although I certainly like reins, and have even used draw reins, IME I do better creating straightness by going forward from the leg. A horse that is going forward will generally be straight.
Generally when I have used draw reins it is to correct an action where the horse is evading the leg and hand by inverting. I am using not the leverage factor but using it more as an adjustable martingale that engages when the head lifts.
I don’t like it for jumping because in jumping the angles and the relative locations of the bit and the rider’s hands change so much that it’s a challenge to have enough rein to work with without creating a dangerous loop that can catch a foot or without accidentally restricting the horse in an unwanted way.
I personally dislike draw reins on a horse that does not stay straight, because to me they would tend to overcorrect and oversteer. I’d prefer gymnastics and jumping chutes and leg/forward for a jumping straightness issue for myself.
