long reining?

[lukeylou]

starting to longrein my boy tomorrow, any advice at all would be useful!
also, can you longrein in a pessoa?

 

[MrsMozart]

No, don't long rein in a Pesso - you want to have one set of 'controls' on the reins

Lots of voice encouragement works well. Wear a hat and gloves! An enclosed area is best until you are comfortably in control.

I put a saddle on and have the reins go through the stirrup irons. I'll have a look see for a piccy...

She got a bit stressed at one point...

But was calmed by my voice and let me sort her out

 

[teddyt]

My advice- be VERY careful with your hands.

From research- Rein contact between horse and handler during
specific equitation movements. Amanda K. Warren-Smith,, Robert A. Curtis, Larry Greetham , Paul D. McGreevy

Greater tensions were required to elicit the responses during long-reining than when riding
although there was no relationship between these tensions. Thus, the rein tensions required for
long-reining were not a predictor of the rein tensions required when riding the same standard
course. The difference in the maximum tension recorded was 7 N. Given that the difference in the
weight of the reins between riding and long-reining was only 1.5 N, the increased tension
required for long-reining must reflect other influences. These could include the length of the reins
used in long-reining that may affect the maintenance of the lightest of contact (McLean, 2003)
because the greater distance between horse and handler reduces sensitivity to the horse’s mouth
(Wynmalen, 1985). These results show that long-reining should be conducted with caution and it
is not a practice that should regularly be applied to young horses in their foundation training,
especially if the ultimate aim is for them to respond to the lightest stimuli. If the chief benefits of
long-reining are to linked to safety, perhaps increased attention to habituating horses to girths,
saddles and the weight of riders, or even an alternative method of teaching rein signals, would
have the same outcome.
As Cook (2003) described, driving a horse in long-reins implies dependence on the reins as the
main form of communication due to the lack of other modes of stimulus application, such as seat
and legs. As expected, greater tensions were required to achieve the halt response during longreining
than riding. This highlights the importance of the use of other stimuli, such as weight and
legs through classical conditioning, that reduce the need for tension in the reins to achieve a halt.
Having said that, the tensions applied for the halt response were much greater than those required
for any other response. This shows that riders and trainers need to be careful with the amount of
rein tension used when halting and furthermore, that a greater understanding of the process of
classical conditioning is necessary so that the reliance on rein tension can be decreased as swiftly
and elegantly as possible. It was not surprising that the more steps were taken by the horse to
perform the halt, the greater the rein tension required to achieve the halt response, since latency to
complete the response is a measure of the horse’s responsiveness to the halt stimulus (McGreevy,
2004). Generally, horses that have habituated to rein tension will be more inclined to lean on thebit pressure rather than actually slow the legs, as the correct meaning of the rein stimulus has been
blurred (McLean, 2003).

 

[lukeylou]

thank you, your horse is beautiful!

I'm a bit nervous, he has a tendancy to just charge around and ignore me on the lunge. but i'm not allowed to ride or do circles so this is my only choice. hopefully it will teach him (and me!) a thing or too!

 

[Walrus]

I've recently been learning long reining with Bobby-Fell, the first time was not ideal but we've kind of got the hang of it now. I would say firstly make sure the horse is OK with a rope round the bum / back legs (although if you already use a pessoa that should be OK, yes? Not sure how those things work). I have my stirrups short but run down and then put the reins through them, mainly because I was getting the pony ready to be ridden so wanted to have stirrups there so he could get used to them. I find I have to use my very best "school ma'am / teacher" voice to get Bobby-Fell to walk on, although he will now walk, stop, steer and trot on long reins (after a fashion). He also gets a thwack across the bottom to encourage forward movement. I also use very loose side reins to stop Thelwell-like grass grabbing en route too.

I would also echo Mrs M in wearing a hat and gloves. The one time I long reined without gloves pony b*ggered off home without me leaving me lying in a stubble field, I managed to clonk my head (had a hat on fortunately) and got the mother of all rope burn on my hands!!

After the charging off incident I took to long reining in a turnout paddock for a while before we ventured back round the stubble fields.

ETA. One thing that I do is hold the reins the other way up, so they are running the same way as reins run when you ride (up through your hands from the bit, as opposed to down), it's a really little detail and one that my instructor pointed out to me but it made a really big diference and made contact similar to when you ride.

Good Luck.

 

[rubyrumba]

Hi no offence meant here but usually you have the stirrups down but not too long they will hit the horses elbow and not too short they are on the saddle flap. Have a spare stirrup leather totie the stirrups together (underneath the horse tummy) so they don't flap and then the longs reins will act as the leg on their side. Hope that helps.