How to Hold a Horse's Reins for Walking

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Kelli on behalf of Expert Village. I am going to show you how to ride your horse with a walk. So there are a couple of different ways that you can hold your reins when you are riding. If I was riding more English or if I had a younger horse riding Western with a snapple bit in its mouth, I would want to be riding it with two hands. So when you hold your reins, you want to hold your reins right between the pinkie and your ring finger and you are going to have your thumb on top. So it is kind of a fist like that. So when you ride, you want to have your thumbs pointing upwards so that your hands is in a fist that way but you don't want to hold the reins too tightly or hold them too loosely. You just want to have a nice relaxed pressure on the reins. So you never want to get like this which will cause your elbows to stick out. You want your elbows right next to your side with your thumbs sticking out. So that is how you would want to ride if you are riding more of an English horse or you are riding a younger horse but in the Western style. If you did have an English horse, you would have much different reins and these are Western reins so you it is too separate reins. An English bridle will have reins that are connected so it is just one long rein. Now if you were riding Western which I have heard in a shank bit, she is a little more advanced in the Western style. She is a little bit older horse. You are going to be riding in a shank it with one hand so what you want to do is you want to take your reins put them together like this. First you want to make sure that your reins are the same length to begin with. This will make it a lot easier for you. So you are going to pull it down to where it is a comfortable length for your horse and whether you ride right or left handed, it is up to what is comfortable for you. So you are going to hold your reins together and you are going to hold them with one hand and your thumbs is going to be pointing in the direction where you want to go. So when you steer your horse one handed, you do more of a neck rein so you lay your rein, use a little bit of leg and your horse will go either way that you tell it to. So you are just holding the rein in the palm of your hand like that curling your fingers around it and your thumb is right in the center of two reins. So that way if you pick up, it applies a little bit more pressure to your horse's face. So that is how you want to hold your reins, either two handed or one handed."