After having had success in training and showing horses in about every western event people often watch me ride or take my clinics in the hope of learning some of the secrets of training and showing a horse. There are no secrets. You must simply understand a little of the natural behavior of a horse, understand what the judges want to see, and be confident in what you want to do.

Understand why a horse does what he does. Understand what causes him to make mistakes. And understand what we should do to make him want to do the things that we want. Do not simply try and force him do what we want.

Let us consider the most basic point in the training of a reining horse, that is teaching him to steer or willingly guide. The first and most important point is to keep it simple. There is no need to make it more complex than it already is. If the following three points are practiced you can go to a lot of reinings and place at or near the top.

1. Your horse needs to stay between your Reins.
2. Your horse needs to move away from your legs.
3. You should not think about winning or losing. THINK ABOUT DOING YOUR JOB! That job is to make a plan and then ride consistently according to that plan at home. If you keep changing your plan your horse has no chance to understand it. And then at the show, ride the horse like you do at home. Apply aids that your horse is familiar with in order that he can understand them, and also so that the show is not an experience full of unfamiliar signals from you, and consequently full of unpleasant pressure. You need to show him tomorrow, next weekend and next year, do not sour him because you want to win a ribbon at this show. Your job is also to know your pattern and the rules so that you can avoid penalties.

Keep your horse between the reins. Reining horses are "reined". Our primary steering device is our reins, if we were to guide them mainly with our legs they would be called "legging horses" They are not. No matter how fancy you traverse and side pass it will not help much if you go to the show and he does not guide willingly and easily with the reins. Most everybody, when they get nervous use their hands more and their legs less than they normally do. This is a normal human reaction, nervous people get busy with their hands. An amateur that can ride all around the arena just with his legs at home, will seldom be able to do this at a show in front of judges and spectators, his legs do not work the same and he can not keep his hands still. Steering is the most basic and important thing that your horse must do at the show and he needs to steer in response to your Hand signals. If he does not steer you are in big trouble. Trouble not only for the circles but also for the rest of the pattern since you need to use your steering to set him up in position for the stops, lead changes and spins. If he simply stays between the two reins and lopes forward when you leg him forward, you can get through most of the pattern. If he will move away from either rein when applied to the Neck not only can you run your circles, you can also spin, since a flat spin is simply the horse moving his Shoulder away from the outside rein. The stop will be better, since a straight approach is necessary for a good stop. And the lead change will work better because if his shoulder stays straight between the reins, he cannot drop his shoulder and miss the change behind. The steering must be "willing". The rule book says "willingly guided". If he is resisting the Bridle reins in any way you should be penalized by the judge.

Your horse must know how to get away from the pressure of those hand signals at home, so that when these pressures are applied at the show they do not scare him. The horse eventually must be shown in one hand so he also must learn to deal with the rider using only one hand. How do we simply teach him to do this? Easy, teach him to stay between the reins. When your rein hand goes left, he needs to turn left. Start by simply making him move forward on a loose rein and then give him the signal that you want him to learn. He needs to learn to respond to a light rein with one hand, he cannot learn the signal if he never gets it. So start by giving him the signal that you want him to learn, even the young horse that knows nothing. Since you want him to eventually learn to respond to a one handed signal (neck rein), start the lesson with a gentle signal from one hand. The horse will learn to guide if you start by giving him the signal with one hand and then use what ever else it takes to get him to move a little in the correct direction and then release the pressure. That means start with one hand and then use the other hand your legs your weight or whatever you want to achieve the correct direction. But do not forget to relieve the pressure after a very little success so the horse can associate the pressure release with the first signal. The signal that you want him to learn. If your horse has 100% confidence that the pressure in his mouth will be relieved when he turns then he will always turn and you will be able to guide him all around any pattern at any speed. Simple.

Learning is done by associating a series of events together. Look at it from the horses point of view...as we are walking forward... ONE...we feel pressure on right side of neck and right corner of mouth...TWO...we Walk continue to forward...THREE..more pressure now by inside rein and outside leg....FOUR ...pressure worries us so we walk a little faster...FIVE... we take a little step left and the pressure disappears. This is repeated 1,2,3,4,5, 1,2,3,4,5 soon the horse will instead make 1,3,4,5 and then 1, 4,5 and then 1,5. He remembers the sequence of events and wants to get to the end as soon as possible because this is where the pressure is released. Simple learning process. The rider must only repeat the pressures in the same sequence, often enough for the horse to learn it.

Horses do not like to be pushed with legs, pulled with reins etc. these are pressures that they would just as soon avoid if they can. The great skill in being a trainer is to apply these pressures in such a way that the horse can figure out how to avoid them. And in avoiding them they do what we want. Simple.

Consider the circle. A horse does not need to be bent to the inside to Gallop a circle. I bet this is a shocking idea to some. Go to any reining and you will see horses that gallop with their head to the outside, some horses that gallop straight and some that gallop bent to the inside. It is your preference as to what looks nicest, but a horse can physically do either. It is important to observe that may riders work constantly on pulling the nose to the inside and spend too little time teaching the horse to stay between the two reins. This causes problems. Typically at the show the horse drops his inside shoulder and try to make a smaller circle than the rider wants to. The rider is forced to be always trying to hold the horse out of the center. Before you can solve this problem you must consider why does it happen, what caused it?

To understand the problem yourself it is better to go Back to the beginning and try to understand why the horse does what he does. He does not stay on the big circle, he try to make the circle smaller. Why?

We normally train in a fenced arena of some type. We ride parallel to the long walls, approach the end Wall and turn either into a half or a full circle. This is repeated dozens of times per ride. ONE... down the wall, TWO... end wall approaches and we turn... THREE... ride down the other wall or circle. 1,2,3, 1,2,3 1,2,3. It does not take the horse long to learn the sequence. He knows that he has to turn in a few meters, so he shortens up the sequence to 1,3. He starts the turn too soon. This is only natural, you have turned there dozens of times already, he knows you are going to do it again, so before you pull him into the turn, he turns himself. You have taught him to do this. Good horse. BUT you think bad horse, because he did not wait for you to turn him. This is unfair to the horse. How can he learn to wait for a pressure to be applied on his mouth and neck. He knows that the pressure is coming and he knows that he has to turn, so it's only natural for him to turn first.

This is not the end of your problem. You lift on the inside rein to make the circle bigger, but you have to turn eventually because the end wall is quickly approaching. You bump him on the inside of his mouth and then let him turn anyway, because you want to stay on your circle and not crash into the wall. You repeat this procedure with every circle bumping the inside of his mouth, very soon he will try to get away from this pressure by bending his head away from the pressure, to the outside of the circle. Now you have a horse that is loping in a circle with his head in an unnatural position bent to the outside. And you trained him to do to this.

The typical . by the rider to this problem is to try and lift the inside shoulder with the inside rein. Take two hands, elevate the inside rein, lay the rein on the neck and lift a little. This pushes the horse out on a bigger circle and we feel we have solved the problem. But when we go back to one hand the problem is still there, the horse still drops his shoulder. Lifting the inside shoulder of a horse with the inside rein, while sitting on the horse is similar to trying to lift yourself off the ground by pulling up on your boot laces. It is not very effective. Even if it does temporarily help the fact remains that if you start holding him up in the circle , you will always have to hold him up, and how can you do that with one hand and a reasonably loose rein? Remember we are supposed to show our reining horses with one hand and we score higher if we have a reasonably loose rein. Rather than the rider trying to hold him up in the circle it is better to teach the horse to stand up straight alone and we do this by teaching him to run straight and to to stay straight between the reins. Not bent. . A better way to solve the circle problem is simply to teach him to respect the neck rein. He needs to learn that he is safe when he is straight between the two equal reins and that if there is only one rein on the neck he should move his shoulder away from that rein. You teach him to move his shoulder by simply making him move away from the rein. That means travel in the opposite direction from the pressure. Remember the important part of the horse to control here is his shoulder, not his neck or nose. Where the shoulder goes, the horse goes. Do not be satisfied with thinking that you have lifted the shoulder, pay attention to your direction of travel. If you lay the right rein on his neck do not take the pressure away until he goes to the left. Every time, no compromises. You cannot do this by staying in a right circle. If you are on a right circle you must change to a left circle (or part of left circle) before you release the pressure. Otherwise he will not learn that in order to get away from the rein pressure he must move his shoulder away from it. Check yourself, if you are riding a circle with the inside rein pressing on his neck more than the outside rein, then you are wrong! You must make him go the other direction and then release the rein pressure. To make him move away from this rein you can use your other rein and your leg. But make him move away from this neck rein and then release the pressure. Make him happy to get away from the rein. Do not be content to let him lean on the rein for the entire circle. If you let him lean, even a little, he will learn to lean more and more until you are not strong enough to hold him up anymore. Do not confuse your poor old horse by letting him think that sometimes it is OK for him to lean on one rein. It is never OK, not for one second. Rein pressure should always mean move away from the pressure. He is reining horse, do not let him forget it.

In this discussion I did not say that a horse should not be bend into a circle. A horse looks best when he is traveling in a natural, willing position. When a horse is running a circle with a little slack in the reins it is natural for him to look where he is going, he will be bent slightly into the circle. A natural bend. I did say that they should not lean on a rein.

A good practical plan is to ride more straight lines than circles. This solves the first problem of the horse anticipating the turn and dropping his shoulder. It solves the second problem of him leaning on a rein because a horse going in a straight has to keep his shoulders even, he cannot lean on one rein. If he deviates from the straight line you can easily fix him. Just have your reins in one hand, reins even, and then lift your hand until he straightens out. When his shoulders are straight again put your hand down. He will appreciate you doing it. Lowering your hand will take the pressure off of his mouth. He will learn to like going straight. Ride more straight lines than circles. Ride squares instead of circles. Do not follow the walls. Tell your horse when to turn, tell him how far to turn, then tell him to go straight, and then put your hand down. Make the straight line comfortable for him. More comfortable than the turn. The horse always try to get to the more comfortable place, so let him learn to prefer the straight line. By preferring the straight line he will also prefer the bigger circle, not the smaller circle since it has a greater turn. Thus he will not drop his shoulder anymore. Thus the problem is solved. Simple.

Notice that most of this training is done with one hand. This is a good thing because we need to eventually show the horse in one hand also. They cannot learn to be controlled with one hand when you always train them with two hands. Ride with one hand home, even your young horse needs to ridden as much as you can with the initial signals coming from one hand. He will not learn what these signals mean unless you apply them. He will learn the maneuvers slower if first he learns how to respond to two hands and then later, he must forget this and learn a new set of one handed commands. Give the initial signal, soft and friendly so that he is not scared by it, but hard enough that it causes him to seek relief. Then use all of your other tools (other hand, legs, weight, walls etc.) to get him to move in the desired frame or direction and then release the original pressure. That is how he will learn to be a reining horse. We are not training with two hands and showing with one, we are training with both hands. One hand to give the signal and two hands to show the way. When we use two hands we will move them in unison and keep as close together as the situation allows. In this way they will feel more like a one handed signal to the horse. But remember often the situation requires two and working independently and wide apart. Do not restrict your effectiveness by rules, but remember the guidelines. Such as, do not correct your horse at the show with two hands. He knows the difference between one hand and two hands. You do not want him to learn that he does not have to guide with one hand. Learn to correct him with one hand, or a least fix him with two and them immediately go back to one hand to finish the pattern.

In order to solve your problems observe what your horse does. Look for behavior that is not natural. Anything that he would not do if he were loose and without a rider has been learned from outside pressures. For example horses do not naturally run in one direction with there heads pointed in another. If your horse lopes circles with his head extreme to the outside and his shoulder trying to get to the center of the circle, you probably trained him to do it. He did not learn it by watching other horses, or by reading a book. He is just a horse, he learns by simply trying to keep away from the pressures that are put on him. The pressures that the rider intentionally or unintentionally apply. Decide why the horse does what he does, what pressures cause this behavior. Teach him to want to do what you want by adding and removing pressure so that he wants to go the position that you want. Now you must decide what it is that you want...