Question about neck reining and trips away from "home"...

[lurath]

My mare, Deli, is at the end of a rehabilitation track for a popped/fractured splint bone after being kicked by a pasture mate and to stay off boredom (for both of us) I have been teaching her to neck rein. I know HOW to neck rein, but I have never trained a horse to do so

Comments

[colebaltblue]

The person that suggested this trained Arabian horses and showed them for people years before I met her (she also was a hot-shot hunter/jumper when she was young too). I actually didn't get into too much detail with her about training western horses. I did see her dressage training methods and really liked them. I also rode with her trainer and loved her. I rode some of her horses she trained from the ground up (dressage) and they were lovely horses to ride, but she was never in the business and did training as a side gig and mostly for pleasure people who didn't want to pay a Big Name Trainer type by wanted good, quiet, rideable horses.

I doubt she was theorizing and would place money on her using the technique herself, but who knows if she came up with it entirely on her own, or if it is a tried-and-true method she picked up during her show days.

I'm hesitant to try such a thing because of the very safety issue you mentioned. Well, that, and I'm just trying to w/t/c my horse at the moment so the last thing I want to deal with is neck reining!

[coneycat]

It certainly doesn't sound like she's the type of person who would just theorize about something she knows nothing about. (Although I have run into people with very odd ideas about what western riding "must be like.") In that case, this could be a usable method, but if I tried it I would definitely use a snaffle with a large ring, or the kind of shank bit with a dee that the shank is built off, and attach backup reins for actual steering.