Dressage Solutions: Prevent Your Reins from Getting Too Long or Too Short

Try this tip from Jane Karol.

Think of the rein contact as if you were
talking to someone at a comfortable
distance across a dinner table. If you
expand the distance and stop talking, the person
loses attention and becomes distracted. If you
suddenly shorten the distance and talk without
a break, the person becomes uncomfortable and
claustrophobic.—Jane Karol

(Illustration by Sandy Rabinowitz)

Jane Karol, PsyD, is a U.S. Dressage
Federation gold medalist. She has
trained seven horses to Grand Prix
and has worked with many of the top
clinicians in the world, including Lendon
Gray and Gerrit-Claes Bierenbroodspot.
She is a doctorate-level psychologist
and works with children in Equine
Assisted Psychotherapy at her Bear
Spot Farm in Concord, Massachusetts,
which is also a dressage training facility
(bearspotfoundation.org). She says that
equine assisted psychotherapy harnesses
the horse’s ability to be both loving
friend and patient teacher.

This article first appeared in the November 2012 issue of Dressage Today. 

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