What happens if you drop your reins (lines?) ?
Now, I’m a h/j & racing person, so don’t laugh at me. I don’t know driving, at all.
Was watching some the other night and I was wondering what happens if you drop them? Or is there something they go through so you really can’t drop them?
Tx.
some people use a little finger loop on the buckle of the rein so that at least it’s still on your little finger. MOST just sit on the end of the reins.
If you’ve done your ground work well, your horses arent going to take off cause you dropped your reins. They are long enough that you can reach down and grab them. I ride with my son next to me, and helping him in and out of the cart, i’ve been known to drop my lines many times. Pony just learned to stand there oblivious.
It’s generally not the end of the world to drop a rein. Now making a loud noise and leaping off the seat to grab them might scare the horse and you might be in trouble, but if you keep your cool and dont make a big deal out of it, they dont make a big deal of it either.
The lines are so long… is there a safety reason that you wouldn’t attach them to each other (like English / racing reins) and run them through / under / around something so that they couldn’t drop to the ground? They’re long enough that you could do that without danger of yanking on the horse’s mouth.
Of course, I tie knots in the ends of split Western reins, so perhaps I have a distorted view of the world :lol:
Yes, you can “drop” them, but generally they are long enough (which is WHY they are long!) that the ends (which should be buckled at all times) don’t leave your carriage before you have a chance to grab them again.
Generally, you don’t run the reins through anything because that does limit their flexibility to be wherever you might need them at any time…but… if one is truly worried about losing them altogether out of the carriage, one can buckle a simple spur strap around the rein rail on the dashboard to create a big loop, and run one rein through the loop. That acts as a prevention to loss - as long as the driving reins are buckled, and the loop can travel the entire length of the rein rail to facilitate the use of the rein. But it does limit the free range of motion for the rein somewhat.
Some people will attach a “trailing rein” to the buckled ends of the driving reins - rather like a thin long leather lead rope attached - and that rein will remain in the carriage, dangling down to the floor with the bight held firmly under the driver’s foot, so that if the driving reins go overboard, the trailing rein will keep the driving reins from being lost completely.
Now, if you ever do lose your driving reins, you better hope your animal responds to the verbal “whoa” because there ain’t a lot you can do to retrieve those reins short of leaping out of the vehicle, or hoping the reins will run under a wheel to bring the animal up short (nasty on the mouth, tho) so you can leap out and grab them. If you have a groom, you can always put them down to run up to the horse (or pair) to grab the trailing reins.
Such interesting questions we’re getting lately on this forum …
[QUOTE=gothedistance;6269236]
Now, if you ever do lose your driving reins, you better hope your animal responds to the verbal “whoa” because there ain’t a lot you can do to retrieve those reins short of leaping out of the vehicle, or hoping the reins will run under a wheel to bring the animal up short (nasty on the mouth, tho) so you can leap out and grab them.[/QUOTE]
Thank you for the last bit of motivation I needed to haul my sweaty self back out into the heat (now down to a balmy 99 from the 102 it was earlier) to do just a leeeeetle more ground work with the pony!:lol:
We try to sit on the long end buckle, so if you should drop a rein, you won’t lose the entire rein set.
You might have to check that buckle end is still under you now and again. Bumpy roads might make it fall out if you can’t “stay down” on the buckle.
This sitting on the buckle end, was pointed out as a safety feature when we were starting out, to prevent getting a foot or leg snagged in the rein loop.
We no longer use the rein loop on a finger. A friend got their hand jerked with that loop, broke and dislocated that finger. You just can’t get it off fast enough, if reins get pulled that strongly. If you sit on the buckle end, rein loop is covered up so you can’t use it anyway.
As GTD suggested using an additional piece of leather or cord, for a trailing rein on the buckle end is quite helpful when reins are too short for sitting on. But here, we would still be sitting on that added length, not letting it hang down by our feet.
If you can’t keep your elbows down by your sides while holding the reins comfortably, they are probably too short for the vehicle you are driving and should be replaced. Buckle end should have a couple feet or MORE length from hands to buckle. You never want reins so short the buckle is in your
hands while driving, no extra length at all. Of course this is for fun and Pleasure driving.
Breed ring expectations may be totally different, with hands held out in front of you, shorter reins up in the air, to have the correct “stylish look” in the ring.
I have a bad habit of scrunching forward in my seat, and I found that sitting on the bight tended to get me fussy and sitting even more forward. My reins are probably not long enough. A friend taught me the loop over the pinky which I really like.
Came in very handy as I was headed down the trail one day at a brisk trot and the flies were bad, pony was nodding his head and flapping his tail quite a bit. Managed to nod and flap at just the right moment and snapped the reins right out of my hands! I’m still a bit bewildered how he actually managed it. Thankfully it was a fraction of a second to grab the reins since they were literally dangling from my hand thanks to pinky loop. I did make my loop of a bit of thin leather lacing that breaks easily, should I become suddenly separated from my horse.
I drop my lines all the time. I have rheumatoid arthritis, and my hands suck.
I did a ton of voice command work with my pony, and he has a rock-solid whoa. If I drop the lines but I can still reach them (the usual case), I just pick them up again and carry on. If I can’t reach them, which has happened but not often, I tell him whoa, he stops in his tracks and stands there, and I go retrieve my lines in embarrassment. I swear the pony laughs when I do this.
Rebecca
A small leathr loop at the buckle end of your lines will help.
Let me share a little story when a CDE driver dropped a rein in a hazard at the Sunshine CAI held over in Ocala a couple of years ago. I was working that hazard . There were 3 of us well away from the hazard considering routes. The driver dropped his lines and managed to pick up the right rein. He came out of the hazard with only a right line. The horse turned towards us at a gallop. 2 of us started running towards our cars, but the horse was upon us , we kept running to the right to get out of his way, and he just kept turning into us. I finally stopped and thought, this is going hurt. The carriage went by me and touched my sleeve. I was very very very lucky.
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