[drivingpairs] Pair Rein Adjustments 102



I hope you had time to read and think through my post from yesterday - Pair 
rein Adjustment 101. 
Now let me add one more item as that is often misunderstood, even by VERY 
experienecd pair drivers (and was written up incorrectly once again in the 
reprint of an old article on Coupling Reins - page 89 of the March 2006 
Carriage 
Journal - I would have written a letter to the editor, but only read it 
recently, 
and think it's now too long after that issue for that). Some people think 
that by shortening or lengthening just one of the reins at the bit, they can 
influence only one horse and not the other. That's wrong. Think about it! If 
you 
shorten a rein on one horse, it ALWAYS has the same effect as lengthening the 
rein on the other horse, regardless WHERE you do the change. If one is shorter 
it also means the other is longer, no matter if you shortened it at the 
coupling rein buckle, or at the bit. Just the same as when a tailor would 
shorten 
one of my pants legs by an inch. Then one would look shorter and the other 
would 
look longer, and it doesn't matter, if he took out the inch at the bottom, or 
at the knee, and unless I would wear my pants always at the very same spot 
around my waist, you couldn't tell if one pants leg would have been shortened 
or 
the other would have been lengthened. The same is the case with our pair 
reins since the ends which we hold in our hands are flexible, and are not 
rivetted 
to the dash board. 

So since shortening one ALWAYS has the same effect as lengthening the other, 
that means, you can NEVER just influence ONE horse by shortening or 
lengthening the reins at the bit or at the coupling rein buckle, you ALWAYS 
influence 
BOTH horses!

And that is the reason we change rein length ONLY at the coupling rein 
buckle, and not at the bit, as to most of us it is more clear that we influence 
BOTH 
when we change at the coupling rein buckle, and we easily forget this 
principle when we start changing rein length at the bit.

And THAT is the reason that you should NOT lengthen or shorten just ONE rein, 
but always do it on BOTH reins, as when one horse is crooked, and you try to 
change that by changing just one rein on him, you are now punishing the other 
horse by also pulling his bit crooked into his mouth. 

Oh, boy, I can only hope that I could explain this properly this time, as 
quite often I have failed when I tried to explain it to some very experienecd 
pair drivers, who wouldn't believe me and are still changing rein lengths at 
the 
bit and are still thinking that with doing so they can influence only one 
horse and not the other. The fault when I couldn't convince them, always was 
not 
in the above truth, but always only in my failure to explain it properly.
Hardy



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