Welcome to Trainer Tuesday! Each week we ask trainers a question and gather their answers for you. These trainers have a range of experience, backgrounds, and focus points of their programs, so the answers have as much variation as you would expect and also probably much more similarity.
This week’s question posed is: When would you have a student use a driving rein as a training technique?
Here are their answers:
“I like to use a driving rein as a training aid to help riders learn to have a more following hand and a better connection to the horse. I find it very useful to correct riders who roll their elbows out and have flat hands, or riders that want to brace against the horse. It also helps riders that are ready to move away from using a crest release for balance to start learning an automatic release.” –Shayne Wireman
“I have students use a driving rein as a training technique when they tend to have very stiff elbows and a hard hand. Hard hands create a hard mouth, stiff, and an unhappy horse. By using a driving rein it allows them to have a softer feel on the horse’s mouth and rely more on their leg and seat balance.” –Devon LeMoine
“I wouldn’t usually have a student use a driving rein, unless they are very heavy handed and need to learn how to be soft with their hands. This can be taught through coaching on the horse during lessons.” –M.K. with Unity Riding Academy
“Holding the reins in the ‘driving rein’ position is most often used to encourage the rider to utilize their elbow. This hand position encourages the rider to follow or give/yield to the horse as he uses his neck. Horses oscillate their head and neck in the walk and canter for balance, so to maintain constant contact the rider should follow this motion with their arm. This use of the head and neck to balance is exaggerated when the horse jumps, so after mastering the crest release riders could move to an “automatic” release where the rider maintains contact while the horse uses his head and neck for balance. Holding driving reins and widening the hands encourage the rider to follow as they learn the feeling. An added benefit is this also often helps with upper body control over the jumps.” –Dustin Cossaboom
“I will make a student use a driving rein to straighten out arm/elbow/wrist issues. Driving reins will keep the elbow-wrist- bit line that we talk about so much. It also helps with the rider who wants to ‘break’ their wrists in different ways. It’s a great exercise that helps retrain those issues.” –Jennifer Pigue
“A driving rein is used in two ways in our lessons:
1. For riders afraid to take contact and carry too long of a rein. Driving reins give them the feeling of a length of rein where they can feel a connection and get their fingers closed and arms moving. They can easily switch back to regular reins.
2. For riders who struggle to follow the horse’s mouth due to broken wrists or stiff elbows.” –Jamie Grant
“I would have a student use a driving rein as a training technique if they had heavy hands and were using the reins for balance. The rider needs to learn to have independent aids, especially the hands that can severely affect the horse’s mouth. In my clinic bag that I carry to all barns around the country are a couple pairs of the Aaron Vale Reins with 3 padded hand grips that encourages more relaxed arms and softer hands.” –Sally Batton
“We use driving reins when we have students that want to pull a lot or just hold onto the horse‘s mouth for balance. The change in the way the hands are holding the rains makes it harder for them to do that.” –Colleen Brombach
