I have learned never to jerk on the reins when I ride a horse. Jerking on the reins makes the bit in the horse’s mouth cause the mouth pain. You can never get good performance from a horse on the basis of pain. I want to teach my horses to be responsive with a light mouth. I smoothly take slack out of the right rein to ask the horse to move to the right. When the horse responds by moving right, I reward the right response with a release of the rein. This teaches the horse to be receptive quickly. When I am generous and I tell my horse that he is right, he is encouraged to keep trying to get it right every time!
