Draw Reins

The answer was from Jean-Claude Racient. Just thought I'd share....

QUESTION:

I have a question about drawreins. I am advised to use them with a very experienced Selle Francais that I ride (a Grand Prix jumper who has high level dressage training also). Your books mention drawreins in a few places but not in any detail. Could you please clarify your view of them? In your opinion, when can they be used? How should they be used?

Thank you very much.

ANSWER:

If you have read my book "Total Horsemanship", you know that I advise strongly against draw-reins, side-reins, etc, i.e. what we call in French "enrênements fixes", fixed contraptions.

Any attempts at fixing rigidly and by force the head position creates with the horse a feeling of desperation, of being "locked in", etc… This feeling, which cannot be expressed outwardly, is then expressed "inwardly", and ends up in stress, creating vertebral blockages in the cervical segment.

A blockage at C1 ("C" stands for "cervical") will create head aches, vision troubles, propensity to spooking and rearing; a blockage at C2 and/or C3 will translate by the horse grinding his teeth; a blockage in C4 may end up in a horse's limited ability to use his rear end (hind feet dragging); a blockage at C7 will end up limiting and/or altering the gesture of the front legs and may in time lead to navicular disease by slowing down the blood flux in the front end, etc…

Beside these vertebral drawbacks (the word fits), there is a risk that with draw-reins you will strengthen precisely the muscles of the neck you do not want to work. Steinbrecht (German author of the XIXth century) very wisely states that "any auxiliary rein for putting the horse on the bit, whatever name it might have, actually works well if it doesn't work at all" ("The Gymnasium of the Horse", Xenophon Press, translation by Helen K Gibble. page 218).

Indeed, there is no other way for a horse to increase the contact he has with the bit than by putting to work the muscles of his neck whose function it is, to open the angle at the poll. Since the draw reins multiply by two the power of the rider's hand ("pulley" effect), the resistance of these muscles (necessary to establish the contact) is multiplied by two, and so is their power.

These muscles are the "obliquus capitis lateralis". They are situated on both sides of the horse's poll, from the crest of the second cervical vertebra to the wings of the atlas, and from there to the occiput. Their contraction is the main source of resistance with all the horses. Therefore, when you ride your horse without the draw reins after having trained him with them, you will have to resist twice as much to keep him on the bit.

Conclusion: if you still desire to use draw reins, do it for short periods at a time, and make the horse yield enough to keep them loose.

Thank you for your interest. J.C.R.

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