The rein-back – To do or not to do?

When chatting with a friend at my local Swedish barn who competes in dressage, she said that the one movement that seem to cause the most difficulty is the rein back. She was talking about horses that in dressage tests perform lateral work in all gaits, counter canter and changes of lead in the canter. The rider of these horse apparently never or seldom know if their horses will rein back at all during a competition, or in what way.

I was very surprised to hear this and offered my opinion that the rein back is a more basic movement than either later work, counter canter or flying changes of lead. She agreed. After pondering this for a while I came to the conclusion that these riders likely don't practice reining-back very often. I've been told by various trainers that rein-back for the horse is a very difficult and demanding exercise and that horses perceive of it as a punishment so therefore it should not be performed too often.

But is it so? Horse's can back perfectly well all by themselves when they decide they need it, so why shouldn't I ask for it?

Mental aspect

In Natural Horsemanship, backing a horse is sometimes described as a way to inform the horse, in a way the horse could understand, that I want to be the leader. Leadership between horses, and also between human handler and horses are determined through movement and territorial dominance. So when you have you horse back away from you, and in so yielding the territory he/she just stood on to you, you have in fact informed the horse you are the leader again today. As I see it, first and foremost there seem to be a mental aspect to backing the horse: establishing leadership and communication with the horse.

When mounted

When reading Reflections on equestrian art by Nuno Oliveira I found this statement about rein back: “The practices of rein back is useful for certain horses who push against the bit and who weigh heavily against the hand.” Here I can only agree, rein back when mounted is an excellent tool for controlling the horse's balance. In this regard rein-back is not just mentally affecting your horse, but it is also a good overall gymnastic exercise if done correctly, and with this I mean there should be no pulling on the reins from either you or your horse.

How to

Official theory would like us to use our legs to push the horse forward, then letting the hand convert the forward energy into a backward movement. To use the legs and the hand in this way, is as far as I'm concerned not a good idea. Most likely the only thing you will achieve is to teach your horse that your legs doesn’t really mean go forward.

Another theory for the cues for rein back is to use only the hand. One argument for this is that “In terms of balance and locomotion, forwards movement and the rein-back are diametrically opposed. Common sense therefore means that the aids that ask for them must be strictly opposite” (Philippe Karl Twisted truths of modern dressage). As I already mentioned, this does not mean you should pull your horse backwards with the reins, but instead use a circular lifting action of the hand (the classical half halt as described by de la Gueriniere in School of horsemanship) to rebalance you horse so that he moves backwards.

In my experience rein back, both from the ground and when mounted, is a very useful exercise that I practise with all horses I handle, and that I teach all my students. It is not a exercises you need to, or should wait to ask of your horse until he/she can do flying lead changes a tempi.