The Sliding Side Rein/Lauffer Rein
The sliding side rein gives a bit more freedom to the horse than the standard side rein. It attaches from a lower ring on the surcingle, through the bit ring, and back up to an upper ring on the surcingle. This allows the horse to stretch down and lower his head while still maintaining contact with the bit, and are therefore useful on horses that are tight in the back, carry their head too high, or are learning to stretch forward and down for the bit contact.
Like the side rein, the lauffer rein is adjusted so that the horse has contact with it when his head is at or just in front of the vertical. Green horses should have the lauffer rein attached to a lower and middle surcingle rein, while more advanced horses can have the reins raised to a middle and high ring on the surcingle.
The sliding side rein was designed to be attached to the outside rings of the surcingle, not between the legs. Running the reins between the legs can encourage a horse to get behind the bit and overflex.
Read more about this topic: Side Reins
Famous quotes containing the words sliding, side and/or rein:
“What opium is instilled into all disaster? It shows formidable as we approach it, but there is at last no rough rasping friction, but the most slippery sliding surfaces. We fall soft on a thought.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Take the serious side of Disney, the Confucian side of Disney. It’s in having taken an ethos ... where you have the values of courage and tenderness asserted in a way that everybody can understand. You have got an absolute genius there. You have got a greater correlation of nature than you have had since the time of Alexander the Great.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“Ignorant free speech often works against the speaker. That is one of several reasons why it must be given rein instead of suppressed.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)