Lorien Stable: Trainer's Notes Welcome. Enjoy. For discussion of this article, or any other topic, visit the Message Board.

Today's topic is Staying on the Rail.

I have noticed a tendency in many beginners to want to pull a horse back to the rail by using the outside rein. This doesn't work :) and I'll tell you why:

	Say you're going around the arena to the left; When you get to a corner, you use your left rein and left leg to make the turn. (Keep contact with outside rein and outside leg, but these are not "active.")
	If your horse begins to drift off the rail, you may try to pull him back on with your right rein (outside rein). What you've just done is to counter-flex the horse; that is, you've bent him the wrong way. Now even though you're using your left (inside) leg to ask the horse to move to the right, he's still not going to be able to do so. He's bent the wrong way, and he can't circle into the rail.
	Let's look at circling, briefly. When you circle, to move out on the circle, you use inside rein & inside leg; to spiral in, you use outside rein & outside leg.
	When you're travelling along the rail, you're just making a very large, rather squared circle. If you want to open that circle--move toward the rail--you need to flex in the proper direction (to the inside), and use inside leg. Do be sure you don't lose contact on the other rein. If you don't have contact on both reins, your horse can just pop his shoulder in and go wherever he wants to anyway :) But the rein you're using should be "active" while you maintain contact with the other.

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