When my son was little, he struggled to maintain proper contact in the leather reins we were using. No matter how hard he tried, the reins would slip through his fingers, and pretty soon there was little or no contact between him and his horse. Sally Swift beautifully describes proper rein contact in Centered Riding
, but trying to describe “feel” to young riders is difficult, mostly because young riders don’t have highly developed abstract thinking skills. Professional teachers know that abstract thinking will come with age, but while they are young, children need concrete examples. Sadly, most of the kinds of tape we tried over the years quickly fell off. At our (awesome!) 4-H jumping clinics this summer however, we discovered a new solution to the marker conundrum: Rein markers made out of Vetrap. All you have to do is wrap the Vetrap around the reins at the spot you want the rider to mark, and tear off the remainder of the roll. The “sweet” spot will be different for flat work (longer reins) as opposed to jumping (shorter reins). Don’t ask your rider to “make do” with one marker for two jobs. The Vetrap marks are only for informal training. Do not take them to a show and expect the judge to look the other way. Of all the tapes we’ve tried in the past, the Vetrap stuck and stayed the best.
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