How well trained is your horse?

You know when you had lessons and your instructor was always yelling use your legs, shouldn't even need those reins.

Well if your reins were taken away could you honestly control your horse?

I went for a ride and the thought came to me, my answer is no. I dropped my reins and tried using my legs and my seat, he listens for some of it or not at all, but as soon as I touch the rein to go in the direction I want he goes that way.

So hypethically if you were riding your horse and the reins dissapeared somehow, could you still steer?

On Dobe, yes. His turns with my legs are a little mushy since I never work on it, but I can turn and stop him without using the reins. My others, not so much LOL.

It took time and effort to train the horse to follow the rein, and if I were to take the same amount (or more) to train him to steer by leg, he would. But , I am too lazy and not knowledgeable enough about training from rock bottom.

Well, I believe I would be able to steer Jesse without any reins. In fact, I have :). He's almost more responsive.

With Kitty, not so much. I had my second actual ride (walk, trot, etc) and she's a little crazy to canter to begin with. Even my trainer will sometimes have troubles going right. However, I think I could stop her. She stops on a dime, lol. She can go from canter to halt scarily easy.

Is my horse well trained? No. Absolutely not.
Could I control him without reins? To a point. I have made a big deal of training him from the very beginning from seat and legs first. He woahs very nicely from just seat, and will usually (when he's behaving) take direction from it as well.

That being said, he is only 4. He is far from well trained lol.

Yes, that's how my horse was trained. Try steering him with the reins and he'll let you know that he is NOT happy with that!

Well-trained though? He's 4, he's well-trained for a 4yr old. So there are days he has his 4yr old moments and there are days you'd never guess he was only 4.

Thats interesting.
On Sammy if he was in a quite mood and was well focused on me he would do most things with just seat and leg aids but doesn't like the reins much. If he is in an excites, hypo mood (which is quite often) the reins are very often the only reason he listens to me because he can have virtually no brakes when he feels like it. He is getting better though.

Pepper you almost don't need the reins to get her to do anything including stopping unless she is hypo which is rare. She is still forward moving though so it can help to have them.

Apache I wouldn't really know. I don't think you could do much with him without reins.

I can imagine the choas I would get into lol, but I am going to make that a goal for the end of the year hopefully lol
To be able to ride without reins.

Yes, my bloke is really very sensitive to the seat. His little 'spit downs' are usually from not accepting a contact so I'm sure he wouldn't have them without reins :P
I don't steer with my reins anyway, they are just there as 'support structures' to assist in the bend and contact through a turn. But sometimes I'll just do a muck around ride, drop my reins to the buckle and I can easily steer him and stop him with no reins at all. Canter steering may not be so good as yet, simply because he is still not terribly balanced, but he'd certainly stop to my seat.

If I had to stop without the reins, I don't think our horses would do it. However, for turning, I always ask with my legs before using the reins. Most of the time they respond before I use the reins.