Is there a difference between "the rein back" and backing up a horse under saddle?

The reason, to my understanding, that you don't teach rein back earlier on in a dressage horses career is to properly teach the movement of the rein back. It's not as simple as a horse just backing up, but lifting themselves through the back, with the ability to easily propel themselves forward out of it.

Also, I've found it harder to teach a forward halt on a horse that already knows how to back. Some horses connect the dots of "if I stop, human may ask me to back up" and they'll take a step(s) back once stopped (which is a deduction in dressage). We want them to be forward through the transition, and stop balanced, squared. If they are thinking backwards at all, it won't be a perfect halt.

@ACinATX I taught Minnie to back before committing to training dressage. Pretty much as soon as we started working on the halt in lessons, if she were to go to take a step backwards it was immediately driving her back up into a correct, forward halt. It may seem a bit silly, but it's getting that precision.

I think its something good to teach, but not to drill. I got Toofine stuck in a loop of thinking the answer was backwards before (and I've seen MANY people do this) - where when the horse gets stressed (as he may when he makes a mistake and is made back as a correction) and they auto back under any sort of pressure. I'll dig through my videos and see if I can find a video of Toofine's gate issues. When I would go to enter the arena to run barrels or whatever, the increase of adrenaline/stress would trigger him into backing. It was a terrible time going from backwards back into forwards.

ACinATX said:

Actually I did this myself with Pony. He was really bad at backing up, so we worked on it a lot for a good month. And then for the next three months, his answer to anything was backing up. It was really annoying. I also believe it can be dangerous. I like to work on it with Rowan every week or two, just so he doesn't forget. But I am super leery of over-emphasizing it with him.

Click to expand...

I agree, I think it's super dangerous. Adding extra stress to backing and bam, you have a rearing issue.

I rode Toofine the other day, just to get him back into work, and we were working on stopping from my seat and subsequently backing if it needed a tad of enforcing the aid to drop his rear in the halt. Well, we stopped off of the wall and turned where his rump was to the wall. There was no option to back, he though he was going to be asked to back, hit the wall, and went up into a rear. I've owned this horse for 15 years, and haven't backed him as a 'punishment' in easily 5+ years, but that response is still engrained. And he's hasn't offered a rear even longer.

Old habits die hard.

ACinATX said:

That's another thing I don't like -- backing a horse as punishment. Seems like you're just going to get a horse that backs up when it gets stressed or when it thinks it's done something wrong. I've seen horses at my barn back up real fast when they think they are in trouble.

I don't like to smack my horses, but if they need a correction for something, I'd much rather smack them and get it over with than make them perform some sort of task.

Click to expand...

I made a lot of mistakes with him, and during the majority of my time with horses. Regularly backing was used as punishment by those around me, and I picked up on it. I remember during the days of when he wouldn't get on the trailer, and I'd chase him backwards as fast as he could go, scrambling and falling over his own feet... Now why wouldn't he approach me and come onto the trailer?

The answer seems awfully obvious now, but hindsight is 20/20.

@DollyandAya One rein stopping would not get him out of the backing, unfortunately! It was a game of holding my reins low, sitting deep, and thinking forward... Waiting him out, which was harder said than done. He hasn't gotten stuck in a back up in a really long time, thank goodness.

ACinATX said:

Well after all of that, I backed Rowan up for punishment today LOL. I was out with him in the pasture and he was following me at liberty at a nice walk and at a reasonable distance. Then I stopped and he just plowed right into me. I was pretty ticked off so I made him back up three or four steps. I think backing up to get a horse to respect your personal space is OK generally, but I have to admit that I was coming from a place of punishment in my mind, not intelligent correction. I was so mad at him!

Then he followed me all the way back to the barn and was very, very respectful the whole time.

So yeah. Backing up as punishment...

Click to expand...

I think this instance is fine - it's more of a reinforcer of "hey buddy this is my space, get out!" rather than any sort of punishment.