How to Hold the Reins of a Horse While Cantering

Video Transcript

"I'm Kelli on behalf of Expert Village, I'm going to show you some tips and techniques that I use when cantering and loping my horse. So there is 2 different ways that you could hold your reins. Now if you are riding 2 handed which is usually is more of a English style of riding or if you have a western horse that you are riding in a snaffle bit. It is maybe a younger horse that is not trained yet in a shank bit which is the type of bit that she has in her mouth. It is a shank bit here. So when you are riding 2 handed first of all you want to make sure your reins are even. So you have even contact on each side of the horse?s mouth. You are going to be holding your reins between your pinkie and your ring finger, wrapping your fingers around and having your thumb on top. So when you are looking at the side view of it this is how your hand should be. So your hand should be having your thumbs on top, your thumbs pointing up. You want your wrist nice and supple, nice and flexible you don't want to be really widget on. You don't want to ride with your hands like this because this could cause your elbows to stick out which would give it more of a chicken wing look. Which is not really attractive. So you want your arms just really relaxed at your side, your elbows at your side and you want your hands nice and soft in front of the horse. Now if you are riding one handed what you would do is your first of all you want to make sure your reins are even. So make sure and your would notice to western reins, these are western reins that are actually they are two longer reins which are not contact reins such on a English saddle. So You want to make sure your reins are even. You can adjust it down, you can hold right or left handed depends on how you are comfortable riding. So we are going to hold our reins together, we are going to hold our reins, wrap our fingers around, and we are going to have our thumb at top and we are going to go have all reins held right in the center of the horse neck. So that is how you would want to hold the reins whether you are riding with 2 hands or one hand."