“It is often thought that the dressage or the high-school rider – employs some complicated and mysterious system of his own, which no ordinary horseman could hope to understand and which would be useless for ordinary riding purposes at any rate.

That, of course, is not so.

The principles involved are extrememly simple in themselves and apply just as much to the most elementary as to the most difficult work; there is not, basically, any difference of method in handling a new born foal and riding a Grand Prix Horse; it is merely a matter of degree.”
Wynmalen

“It is a great pity that so few horsemen appreciate that no one will ever go really far in the Art of Riding unless he has acquired an understanding of the basic elements involved. This can only be done by taking one’s horses through all the stages of breaking, making and schooling oneself.”
Wynmalen

This is the beginning of a three part series on how to train the horse to the rein from our activity in the beginning of training on the lead rope that begins in Volume 5.

Whether by the lead rope or the rein the lesson we teach is the same.

It is here that we begin training the action of the rein, from the moment that we pick up the lead rope for the very first time.