A bearing rein, known today as an overcheck or a checkrein, is a piece of horse tack that runs from a point on the horse's back, over the head, to a bit. A bearing rein is used to prevent the horse from lowering its head beyond a fixed point. A variation, called a side check, passes beside the ears through loops at the top of the bridle cheekpieces.
It can be attached to the surcingle of a horse harness, or to the harness saddle.
A bearing rein shares some function with side reins, draw reins, and the de Gogue, and has the opposite function to a chambon and martingale. It can be attached to the same bit as the reins, or to a second, separate bit.
Read more about Bearing Rein: Use, History, Related Equipment
Famous quotes containing the words bearing and/or rein:
“the whole sea become an entanglement of watery bodies
lost to the world bearing what they cannot hold. Broken,
beaten, desolate, reaching from the dead to be taken up
they cry out, failing, failing! their cries rising
in waves still as the skillful yachts pass over.”
—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)
“What rein can hold licentious wickedness
When down the hill he holds his fierce career?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)