Young horse .. any tips

[Crazyhorse]

I rode a new horse today, who I think is 5 years old. He is lovely, but has a bad right rein and leans heavily and falls in. He works very well on the left rein. He is pretty speedy, but really collects himself when you half halt. I realise he is young and needs to be educated on his weaker rein, but can anyone give me any tips as to what I can do as a rider? When he leant on the rein I gave it to him so that he had nothing to lean on.

Hope someone has some pearls of wisdom!

Thanks and a Merry Christmas to you all :)

[Skyhuntress]

A horse can only lean if you give him something to lean on (never letting go, holding your half halts for too long, ect), but giving the rein entirely isn't the way to go either, because then he gets what he wants. To go down low without any contact. So if you know that he is bad on the right rein, really make sure you use your inside leg to keep him out as well as the outside rein to keep his shoulder in check. Use frequent half halts to check him, but make sure you let go, otherwise he will hang.

The germans have a word called eberchreisen (and I am totally sure I butchered that spelling) It doesn't have a direct translation, but what it means is that you give both reins for 2-3 strides. Ideally, what you want to see happen is that horse does not alter anything, and still continues his rhythm. Should you see that the horse really really stretches down, its supposed to tell you that your contact is too much for them and should they hollow out, it's supposed to mean that the contact isn't enough.

It's usually quite effective, because a horse should only stretch low and down when you tell them to. Letting go of the reins does not automatically mean that the horse should be going low and deep.

So when you have a horse that's really hanging on his right rein, change things. Alter your bend everynow and then, give half halts to check him, make sure you ride off your inside leg

[Iron Maiden]

P was trying to hang off my left rein quite badly for a while. My RI said always keep an even contact with both hands, even if this means she isn't straight, then ask for softness & bend on the stiff rein using a very open rein aid, hand held right out to one side, so she can't lean. This has worked really well. There were reasons why she was stiff/leaning & she has improved ever since she started having Bowen treatments, so it may be that the horse you ride has something underlying that could do with being sorted.

[Sexy Sietske]

Longing, long lining and lots of groundwork on the bad rein getting the horse to be more flexible and supple on the bad rein. Any problems in ridden work is usually better solved on the ground.

Don't neglect the other rein though or the horse will just swap its bad rein :p