Rein contact and connection

How much “pressure” should you have in your hands?
What does a pleasant contact feel like?
What is the correct length of your reins, and how do you achieve a soft, consistent connection?

As a rider, your hands are often the first place where you feel what your horse is doing in his body. Because of this, a lot of attention during lessons or training sessions is focused on contact and/or suppleness.

Yet the solution for a pleasant connection is often found in letting go of the focus on contact itself.

When a horse moves well through his body, he will naturally seek the rider’s hand. Trusting this can be difficult. When you make the transition from riding “on the reins” to allowing your horse to seek your hand by himself, he may initially do exactly what you fear: lifting his head and hollowing his back. This is often the reason riders start using more pressure.

By letting go of this old pattern and allowing it to happen for a moment, you create space, for yourself and your horse, to work on the cause and to literally release old habits.

The Foundations of a Soft Connection

For a light and stable contact, in which your horse seeks your hand, several elements are essential:

1. Flowing energy from back to front

This should not be confused with speed. In the beginning, it may be necessary to allow a bit more speed so the energy can start flowing. Later, the energy can flow without speed. Both horse and rider need a forward flow.

2. The reins define the frame, not the pressure

The length of the reins determines the frame of the neck. This happens without constant pressure.
The weight in your hand should not be more than the weight of the reins themselves.

3. Taking up the reins without resistance

When you take up the reins, there should be no change in the contact with your horse’s mouth.
If your horse resists when you shorten the reins, repeat the action more softly. At the moment resistance appears, breathe out, relax, and try again—this time so quietly that your horse no longer feels the need to resist.

4. Respect the length of the neck

Shortening the frame comes from the hind legs stepping under the body, not from making the neck shorter.
This can be developed through lateral work for the inside or outside hind leg, through rein-back, and through encouraging the pelvis to tilt.

5. Releasing tension in the contact

If you notice your horse tensing in the topline or “grabbing” one rein, breathe out and softly stroke along the neck with your inside hand. This releases resistance and makes it easier for your horse to relax and come towards your hand.

Balance and Stability in the Contact

Finding the balance point in bending and lateral work helps your horse become:

• more stable in the contact

• shorter in the frame through engagement of the hind legs

• light and consistent in the rider’s hand

Exercise: Combing the Reins

A beautiful exercise for developing a giving rein contact and removing resistance is “combing the reins.”

• Walk calmly on a loose rein.

• Hold the ends of the reins with one hand.

• Place your other hand with the index finger between the two reins.

• Slide your finger forward in a soft contact towards the withers until you reach the mouth and the reins are at the correct length. The loop is then just out of the reins.

If your horse comes against your hand, calmly let your hand glide back along the reins towards your other hand. Then switch hands and repeat. You are, quite literally, combing the reins, slowly and softly, until your horse begins to seek your hand at the moment of contact.

This exercise can be practiced in walk, trot, and canter.