THE ONE REIN STOP
Many articles have been written about the one rein stop and on lateral flexion. It is supposed to be a tool to be used as an emergency brake if something goes wrong. There are dangers with this though....firstly, the horse is still completely capable of running off with his head turned to the side. This is of course a completely unbalanced way of moving for the horse, thus the danger. The real secret to 'controlling' the horse is to have 'control' of his feet...and for you to achieve that you have to develop feel and some relationship with the horse. If you have your horse's mind, you have his body. Apart from the danger issue of a horse running off with his head to the side, we have the physiological impact of what you are doing to his neck. So, what I would like to do is break it down a little...dissect the one rein stop and get a better understanding of what can and cannot be done. I am not saying that this couldn't be a useful tool to have...what I want to do is make it clear what works and what doesn't because the presentation of this 'aid' is usually lacking some vital ingredients to its success and safety for all concerned.
Where do we begin? Lets remind ourselves of the actual physiological way the horse moves his neck. He doesn't have all that much true side to side flexion at the vertebrae, throughout the neck really (but definitely more than the spine!)..that amazing turn of his head when he needs to scratch his hindquarters has him rotating his vertebrae to achieve that...and the horse, when being asked to turn this way, with rotated vertebrae can have brace in his neck. And Brace means trouble. For those unfamiliar with the term 'brace' it means tension or tightness within a muscle.
What the one rein stop is after is actually softness of the neck muscles, and lightness in the hand. Softness and lightness are two very different things, that is another article in itself! Softness in the neck and lightness in the hand is followed by the horse slowing and stopping his feet in a balanced manner. The flexion actually acts as a pre-cue to the feet stopping, so once conditioned the feet will slow to stop before the neck even gets to a flexed position....lightly in the hand
The flexion of the head and neck to the side only needs to be to the point the horse can go to without rotating the vertebrae...when the horse turns this way you will note that the ears stay level with each other, there is no tilt of the head. In turning voluntarily this way the neck remains soft and there is no brace. You can develop lightness in the hand very easily from this. The minute that you take a hold of the head to turn it and esp if you are asking the head to go too far, you will get brace. When the one rein stop is taught this way, even slowly without apparent resistance the result is a horse that might turn his nose to your boot...but he will tilt his head to do so and not get the true softness throughout the neck, and lightness in the hand. When you are moving there is brace if asked to turn this way because the horse knows it is physically difficult and not wise to do so... when there is brace you will not have balanced movement in the horse and the potential for a fall is greatly increased.
Now, there are lovely stretches we can do where it is advantageous to the horse to turn with the rotation in the neck...but these are not for the moving horse! The aim of the so-called one rein stop is to get the feet stopped, hence we are already moving. What we actually want to condition is that when the rein is picked up in that certain way for the one rein stop, that the response is to slow the feet. This has to be built up over time and with some repetitions and practice. Horses do not bolt with softness! They brace, and go.
to be continued...
