# Pulling on Reins -- How Hard is Too Hard?



## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

It's tough, but you have to trust that your instructors have the best interest of the horse, as well as you, at heart. If they are telling you to pull harder then you should. 

What you should NOT do is yank or jerk hard. THAT is punishing for a horse. 

Also, are you riding English? If so, a lot of the times you can avoid the need to pull harder by working on having more, consistent contact with the horse. One of my instructors pointed this out to me. She said I was so worried that even having contact with him would bother him, that I had pretty much no contact. But then, when I needed to communicate with him, I ended up having to pull really hard to make up all the slack in the reins. So if you have more contact then you can get the result you want with less pulling.

Finally, and I think this is really hard for a beginner so if you can't do it it's OK, but ideally you would use as much pressure as necessary, and the very SECOND the horse did what you wanted, you would release the pressure.


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## MeditativeRider (Feb 5, 2019)

I don't know exactly but I know that as a beginner lesson rider, it was something that I found was more when you start out and then over time you learn how to stop them better using your seat (and legs for turning) and less rein. So when starting out lessons, even on the same horse, I remember going from the having to pull more to get a halt to being able to pretty much just think halt and stop with my seat. I would just follow the instructions from your coach and hopefully over time they will help you develop your skills.

The horse I am riding at the moment, for halting and going down a gait, she does better with a lot of firm but short rein aids rather than one long one.

Obviously depends on the horse as well, and if its a lesson horse that has got to needing a lot of rein to do anything, then there is not much you can change as a lesson rider.


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## MeditativeRider (Feb 5, 2019)

ACinATX said:


> Finally, and I think this is really hard for a beginner so if you can't do it it's OK, but ideally you would use as much pressure as necessary, and the very SECOND the horse did what you wanted, you would release the pressure.


The lesson horse I am riding at the moment is very good for this because if you apply even the smallest aid for halt once she has halted, even for a microsecond, she will start backing up. So it is very good for reinforcing the need for immediate release.


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## dogpatch (Dec 26, 2017)

Pull on the reins hard enough to get the desired response, then release. The release is what teaches the horse what it is you wanted. If you keep pulling, the horse will pull back.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

How hard? Hard enough to get a response. Then off, if riding western. If I'm pulling Bandit's head up from munching on some tasty weeds? Very hard pull. Slowing when he is excited? Bumps, then. Not a pull. And how hard or how many bumps depends on how excited he is. If he isn't excited? Say "Easy" and he shifts down a gear.

Your instructors may be worried you are nagging. Nagging is when you don't give a request (cue) firm enough that the horse complies, and then the horse gets dull to the cue. It then takes even more force to get a response and it ruins the horse to soft riding. So how hard depends on the horse and situation. I'm assuming that the horse already understand the cue since you are riding a lesson horse.


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## jgnmoose (May 27, 2015)

Speaking in general of horses and riding the right amount of pressure is whatever the horse responds to for that cue at that particular time. A horse can be so finely tuned that they feel the change in the reins before any interaction with the bit is even made at all (spade bit horses are a perfect example of this working). Or they can be so desensitized to the bit that they basically ignore it. The catch with either case is that people make them that way one way or the other. 

So what you really want to do in my opinion is always start with where you would like the horse to be and add pressure until you get a response. Think of pressure as a scale from 1-10 for simplicity, where 1 is a light touch and 10 is a severe touch. That particular horse might currently respond at a 7, but they will never get lighter if we always ask at a 7. To get them to a 2 we have to show them a 2 every time first, then give them a 5, then give them a 7.

The trouble here though is that you are riding lesson horses. These horses are going to be sort of an average of all the people that ride them. There is also a lot of the refined feel, timing, and control of an advanced rider you just don't have when you are learning. Think of the horse's side of it as listening to a radio station that has a lot of interference. The only parts of it that you can understand are the loudest part of the sound and you can't really understand the fuzzy, feint and broken up parts. The better you learn to ride the more clear you come across to the horse and your intentions are more easily understood. 

Just stick with it and this phase will pass pretty soon.


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## PoptartShop (Jul 25, 2010)

I don't pull on my reins, I just apply pressure. Little squeezes if that makes sense. 

A little bit of pressure, then release. Just be soft with your hands, don't yank on the reins (no horses like being pulled in the mouth!).


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## TXhorseman (May 29, 2014)

While it should seldom be necessary to "pull" on the reins if the horse is ridden correctly, many "lesson horses" have been so desensitized to rein pressure that pulling sometimes appears necessary. Even so, such pulling should not be applied in the form of a jerk. Rein pressure should be applied gradually and released as soon as a horse responds.

That said, I generally approach such horses differently. Instead of telling the rider to "pull on the reins" to stop, I tell the rider to stop his or her hands in relationship to the ground and let the horse apply the pressure. While this may feel the same to the rider, the horse knows the difference. If the horse is applying the pressure, the horse knows that, if it stops applying pressure, the increase in pressure will stop. If the rider is applying the pressure, the horse really does not know what will happen when it responds in any particular way. Hopefully, if the horse responds correctly, the rider will release the pressure.

Turning cues are best applied with the rider's body -- the rider's hands only acting as a result of the rider's "rotating" body. If the reins are pulled for turns, such pulling should be applied in an outward direction rather than a backward direction. The rider's other hand should release any pressure. Again, all pressure should be released when the horse begins to respond. This acts as a "Thank you," telling the horse it is responding correctly to the pressure applied.


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

Maybe the term "pull" on the reins is incorrect. I know nothing about what your trainer is trying to address, but you don't really "pull back" on the reins. (this is said in the context of English style riding, two handed with direct contact) . . . you maintain a constant, soft, following contact which is short enough that should you want to influence the horse to make a change, i. e. go left/right or slow down, all you have to do is to close your fist and make your hand more 'firm', and stop following the horse so softly. 

What your instructor should more likely be doing is to work on getting you to learn how to feel, and maintain, a good following contact. Once you have that, you can use a firmer hand to affect changes, and at that point, as others have said, how hard you must firm up depends on how much that horse needs to change his mind about things; to make him change his way of going, so that her responds. At which point, you return to following softly.
So, following softly is where you start. yes, it may require a shorter rein, but it NEVER requires 'pulling harder'.


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## Danneq (Sep 18, 2020)

Thanks, all. I'm going to be study from this thread. Some of it I know in my head, it just goes out the window on the horse because there's so much to focus on right now.

I do know not to yank.  Had that trained out of me as a kid.





bsms said:


> Your instructors may be worried you are nagging. Nagging is when you don't give a request (cue) firm enough that the horse complies, and then the horse gets dull to the cue. It then takes even more force to get a response and it ruins the horse to soft riding. So how hard depends on the horse and situation. I'm assuming that the horse already understand the cue since you are riding a lesson horse.


I think it's something similar to this, though not exactly. What I'm doing is sending the poor horse mixed messages, because I get my legs mixed up. So my leg says go left but my hand says go right, because my body wants to use the arm/leg on the same side of my body instead of opposite. (It feels like the old "can you pat your head and rub your belly at the same time" shtick.) I know that will get better as I get more practice. But I think it winds up with the horse getting confused, and then even when I do it correctly, the horse has gotten dull to the cues because I've been inconsistent. Not the horse's fault, I just need to practice.


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

I can still remember how hard it was to keep all the parts of riding in my mind at the same time. And post, AND breath, AND listen to the next instruction . like juggling cats. 
perhaps if you imagined yourself as sitting upon a log, in a river. When you wanted to turn left, say, you might push with your right leg, trying to 'push ' the log over, and you might 'pull' (not really pull, but 'activate' ) the left rein to move the front end of the log over.

Might be a silly image. You might like to read Sally Swifts book on riding "Centered Riding". it's full of great images to help a rider improve.


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## jgnmoose (May 27, 2015)

tinyliny said:


> I can still remember how hard it was to keep all the parts of riding in my mind at the same time. And post, AND breath, AND listen to the next instruction . like juggling cats.
> perhaps if you imagined yourself as sitting upon a log, in a river. When you wanted to turn left, say, you might push with your right leg, trying to 'push ' the log over, and you might 'pull' (not really pull, but 'activate' ) the left rein to move the front end of the log over.
> 
> Might be a silly image. You might like to read Sally Swifts book on riding "Centered Riding". it's full of great images to help a rider improve.


Centered Riding 1/2 is on my reading list for this winter. Keep hearing good things about it.


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## thepancakepony (Nov 13, 2020)

This happened to me to. Ask your trainer what her or she means and why. I have a very light touch on the reins, but my pony is quite insecure and likes a firmer hand, so that was what my trainer meant. It should only ever be a soft elastic contact. If possible, have another trainer give you a lesson and see what she/he thinks. All horses are different, some like a barely there hand on the reins, and others like to know exactly what is expected of them at all times.


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## thepancakepony (Nov 13, 2020)

HALF HALT!!!!!!!!


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## Danneq (Sep 18, 2020)

thepancakepony said:


> This happened to me to. Ask your trainer what her or she means and why. I have a very light touch on the reins, but my pony is quite insecure and likes a firmer hand, so that was what my trainer meant. It should only ever be a soft elastic contact. If possible, have another trainer give you a lesson and see what she/he thinks. All horses are different, some like a barely there hand on the reins, and others like to know exactly what is expected of them at all times.


Good point! When in doubt, ask!


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