From the most basic thing, I want to know everything you know about the outside rein. My pony mare is ignoring the outside rein - I need it broken down to its simplest form, even if I have retrain from scratch. Scratch is not far from where we are so it’s not a big risk.
What do you mean by ‘ignoring the outside rein’? There’s just no information to work with here
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Yes, what is she doing? What are you doing?
What is your previous experience and how have you used the outside rein on other horses?
What is the mares training level, and how does she respond to more experienced riders riding her?
If this is a green horse you can’t expect any understanding of rein aids until you teach her.
If you are a newbie rider or indeed even an intermediate rider on a green horse, you need to be working with a good trainer/coach who can explain what’s appropriate at each stage.
In general the outside rein keeps the horse on the rail, moderates the turn when turning away from your outside thigh, and can control the haunches in halfpass ( this latter you don’t need to worry about yet). In general you keep steady contact with the outside rein but this is only possible if you have steady hands, an independent seat, and horse accepts contact.
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Also note the first prerequisite to going into the outside rein and therefore “on the bit” is that the horse moves forward and away from the inside leg.
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Everything you need to know for about $20
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hmmm good questions… outside rein (in the simplest of terms) is like the pillar of your riding. It stays still for the most part as bend comes from the inside leg and possibly slight inside ‘leading’ rein if you really are on a youngster/greenie.
Are you speaking more of pony ignoring a half halt? in which the half halt is a slight closing of the rein (think making a stronger fist) and pony is running through that? in which that is easily solved with some back to basics as you already said 
more info please!
Someone should read Gordon Wright’s, “Horsemanship and Horsemastership”…and read about the 5 rein effects.
Basic stuff.
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Your inquiry could mean so many things. Without more details there no way to accurately answer your request. How do you know that your pony is ignoring the outside rein? Is this on a straight or bent line? Is she bulging her inside shoulder and slightly counter bent? Your inquiry could mean so many things.
Couple of innocent questions: If you are unsure about the correct basics of using or training the outside rein, how can you detect that she is ignoring it? Also, if you suspect that you might need to retrain the outside rein from scratch, but are not sure what outside rein basics are, how will you know how to train the outside rein?
The outside rein is used from the most basic level of training all the way through every movement through GP. When using the outside rein, first always ask the horse to step inside leg (the rider’s inside leg) into the outside rein. The inside rein slightly encourages a bend, is supported by the inside leg. The outside rein stops that energy and recycles it into an action. That action could be the outside rein regulating the degree of bend or degree of straightness, keeping the horse straight in the leg yield, in half pass, in shoulder in, in the walk pirouette, in the canter pirouette. The outside rein could also help keep the horse’s shoulders straight on the track when the haunches come off the track in haunches in. Outside rein also regulates the length of the neck, as well as the placement of the neck and aids in execution of flying changes. You can half halt on the outside rein, half halt on the inside rein, or half halt with both reins, it just depends on what you are trying to achieve. These are just some of the ways to use the outside rein. There is really not any movement where you don’t use the outside rein to one degree or another.
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EXACTLY. My question is WHAT ARE those basics? I am looking for how to teach them to make sure that nothing was skipped.
In the easiest way to explain half halt, right down to it, its slowing the horse (its not collection at this point). To train it, lets say your trotting, you half halt regularly first (close the fist), if nothing happnes, then stronger half halt (a few inches back and release - dont hold a half halt, always release)… if still nothing, both reins and back into walk… then right back into trot. Its training, it has to be consistent. every. time. It will get better.
For the use of outside rein for turn on the forehand… thats not really a half halt. The use of outside rein for turn on forehand is to block the movement of the outside shoulder (you’re influencing your horse with your aids, in this case the aid is the leg - move your hind end over goes in conjunction with the outside rein - keep your shoulder here). It won’t be pretty at first, but it’ll get better if you’re consistent in the aids. And want to re-iterate, to remember to release the rein after its been used.
Another good training tool is to the spiral in and spiral out exercises, which will lead you into leg-yielding in which all of these will establish an outside rein (if you’re doing them correctly anyway)
Hopefully someone can suggest some good books for basic training… its all based on moving away from pressure (whether its leg, rein and even on the ground) paired with take and release with those same aids. Highly recommend bringing in a trainer to help out, even once a month if you feel you can work on your own.
Hope this helps
otherwise, try asking the questions again lol
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When I was first learning about the outside rein, I really misunderstood the balancing effect of the INSIDE rein - to prevent the outside rein from causing incorrect flexion. It captures energy and redirects it - it’s NOT a “neck rein” in that it doesnt throw the horse onto his inside shoulder as you often see with an incorrectly trained neck reining horse. So just be careful about that until the horse really understands to move from inside leg to, but not beyond, the limits set by the outside rein.
About teaching HHs - try to get to the “halt-no go forward” “hesitation” place. Start with real halts from the walk and be sure they are balnced and not on the forehand (use enough leg to make it a “forward halt”). Try to close his BODY into the halt - not shorten his neck. Then walk on. Gradually maintain leg while decreasing the closing of the hand, remembering to stretch your body up, until the horse learns to hesitate and rebalance and shift his weight slightly back. Don’t let him fall on his forehand - and preventing that begins with a balanced halt at the start of teaching HHs. Take your time. It’s a process.
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Your outside rein is your “alignment” rein. It is what keep the horse straight through the shoulders and keeps the hind end in alignment. Without outside rein communication, anytime you ask for more bend, the outside shoulder will pop out and your horse will drift instead of bend while keeping their body and hind end in alignment. also, in order to properly flex your horse to the inside, you need to be able to flex off the outside rein. Otherwise the horse will simply be over bent in the neck.
If you are interested in understanding the half halt then that is a completely different thing. The half halt doesn’t only come from the outside rent. 60% of your half halt comes from your seat/core, 30% from your legs and 10% from the hand. A half halt is used to rebalance your horse and you should be applying many of them quite frequently. For example, when I ride a corner, I will apply 2-3 half halts in just that one corner. Sometimes more if I need to.
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Yes. Yes. Your description is what is happening even though I’m using the outside rein aid and why I started researching the mechanics-theory-nuance of how it works to try to figure out what I’m doing wrong. And so far I am just finding out “if you don’t do it right” then these are the symptoms - not enough about “how to do it right and here is why it works like that.”
And I am working with an instructor that doesn’t ride anymore. I’m being told to use my outside leg which to me is just a band-aid to cover what I’m doing wrong and she’s learning to ignore it too. I can’t find anything that says to use the outside leg to tune up the outside rein.
If your instructor is not helpful and you are trying to research these basics on the internet, you need a new instructor.
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Or if your instructor is the only game in town, you can do some self-study (two recommendations have been made in this thread) and then discuss with your instructor. Sometimes people just don’t have the words to describe what they are trying to communicate or trying to do.
Here’s another recommendation:
https://www.amazon.com/Dressage-Harm…y+walter+zettl
Why read a book in addition to getting help from the internet? Because there are typically diagrams/pictures to aid in understanding and they are typically written by acknowledged experts (well at least the ones mentioned on this thread).
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Your instructor may or may not be any good, I cannot judge based on this description alone. You DO use your outside leg in conjunction with your outside rein as far as keeping the shoulders in and doing things like TOTF, shoulder in, basic steering, etc. It’s not just your outside rein that does that job. You may be overusing your outside rein - is your horse heavy in it? - and therefore you should be focusing more on your leg aids- that would be correct. And you are not tuning up the outside rein, you are using them together.
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From the very little we can glean from your posts, you are worrying about the outside rein too much for your (and your horse’s) level of riding. If she is not balanced and between your aids, then thinking too much about the outside rein will take your attention from other things you need to be doing.
If your horse doesn’t know how to leg yield, teach her that. You can use the leg yield to get her to understand that you are balancing her between your inside leg and outside rein.
I concur that your instructor needs to be a little more detailed and give you some exercises to help you understand. Just saying more outside leg is pointless.
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Keep in mind that you should not be taking back on your outside rein. You need to capture the weight from your driving leg (inside leg), into the outside rein. Your elbow should remain loose and act as a “shock absorber” . You should never have ridged contact. You need to move with your horse. Again, the outside rein is what keeps your horse in alignment, no matter what exercise you are doing. A clinician once said something that really made sense to me “you can only take back as much as you push into”…you want to keep the outside rein and promote that your horse steps into it (inside leg). Once your horse starts to accept the contact, then you can soften slightly and see if they are willing to stretch more into the contact. You may only get one stride…go back to keeping the outside rein until it is accepted and then soften again. Never throw away your contact. You want to promote that your horse accepts the contact and continues to search for it. Throwing it away doesn’t allow your horse to ever step into it.
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This is an excellent description, IMO. This is why putting a horse on the outside aids is one of the first things I do with a young or green horse. You can’t have bend or straightness without the horse confirmed on the outside aids.
HOW I do it is a very simple exercise all about straight lines and square corners. Ride the horse straight, parallel to the side of the arena somewhere between the 2nd track and the quarter line. If the horse gets crooked, push him back to straight with your legs, do not pull with your hands. Reins must be short enough to have clear communication and rider must be stretched tall, rider weight must be balanced.
Ride the corner entirely off your outside aids.If you haven’t done it before, it is much harder to wrap your head around the idea than it is to do the exercise! Think of the horse’s energy flowing like water - you can’t steer water by pulling it around, you have to put dams where you don’t want it to go; this is the function of the outside aids. The outside leg pushes the horse around, the outside hand blocks the shoulder from falling out.
Yes, your horse is likely to be counter-flexed, but his body should remain straight. It should feel somewhat like turning a barge. Ideally, there should be a loop in the inside rein, but some very crooked horses require some support from the inside rein for a while.
Once you and your horse “get it” do the same exercise on a diamond in the center of the arena, with corners at B, E, and each time you cross the center line. It’s slightly more challenging because you don’t have the visual aid of the corners of the arena. Once this is mastered and the horse has learned that the outside rein is his friend and constant companion, it is a very simple thing to add inside leg to turn the diamond into a 20m circle and achieve bend.
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I also think of my outside rein to help keep the horse “level” horizontally and vertically in the shoulders, and use it as a component of moving the shoulders/keeping them where I want them. I think of the feeling of a bike or motorcycle taking a turn and how they tilt down to the inside of the circle. Your inside leg to outside rein help rebalance and help keep the horse more “level” and upright so to speak. So that popped shoulder means they are not balanced, leads to being unable to take weight equally and push off equally, leads to everything else going to pot :winkgrin:.
But your question is how to teach that initially. It takes feeling and timing. At the very basic you can start on the ground with walk/halt transitions using your voice (whoa, halt, etc) with the rein aids. The feeling in the rein when you are on the ground should be the same as under saddle. Repeat the exercise until the horse understands and gets more responsive to a lighter aid. Then take that back to the saddle. Woah go whoa go with lots of praise when done right. The release of the aid must be clear, you can’t keep the aid on too long or too strong. Eventually the horse will learn that a slight closing of the hand or hesitation in the fingers will mean something.
Last I think we put soooo much focus on the outside rein in dressage that people may take it too literally. The contact should be actually quite equal in both reins. Just because you are half halting on the outside rein to rebalance does not mean it get to have pounds more of weight in that rein.
IMHO I think horses are smart and can figure this out pretty quick. It is us riders that need more experience to really get the timing (giving of the aid and the release) and the feeling (when to ask and how much). This can’t be taught in a book or online, it just comes with time. If you are really green as a rider, you can have someone hold the bit like a horse, you hold the reins and practice with them that give take feeling.
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