Outside Rein

Not another tired old lecture about the outside rein. This topic has become so overused in the dogma of dressage babble that one wonders if it's even useful to talk about at all.

Let me just say that for Delphi and me, especially in the challenging gate of canter, that outside rein connection is all important for a couple key reasons: 1) in the up trans from halt or walk into canter, Delphi has to be into that outside rein to maintain a balanced, through up trans; 2) to maintain an uphill balance and throughness during canter the outside rein has to be assessable and accessible. To do this I must continue cycling through asking if I can have Delphi's throatlatch both on the inside AND outside flexions, and even go so far on the outside rein to counter-flexion at times to really establish the throughness on that outside rein. And OF COURSE always remembering to GIVE (for me and Delphi at this point Karen said the give should be about 85% of the time and the "take" [or "TEST" would be the better word] the remainder) to allow self carriage.

Two older photos from the vault for illustration:

An example of what NOT to do: pulling the outside rein, with no true give in the jaw; to correct I should re-test the flexion even if I have to go all the way to counter-flexion, then give again and possibly cycle through the flexion test again followed by uberstreichen:

Here we see Delphi better into the outside rein, evidenced by a soft jaw and uberstreichen:

Thus concludes today's lecture on the Outside Rein. Thank you for tuning in.