Neck Reining in a Hackamore

[@CanadianCowgirl1955]

I love the looks of that hackamore. Where can I purchase it? Thanks

[@JohnnyFloresHorses]

Thank you. You can email me at [e-mail]

[@audreynboots93]

Ok I got a question. Is the goal to not have to use leg at all correct? They should only move off just the neck rein cue? So in the start of training g if they don’t move off that do you follow up with a leg bump? Or do you go to the doubling? Sorry I don’t have anybody near me that does this style of horsemanship. Trying to learn it correctly.

[@JohnnyFloresHorses]

Ideally the horse should be able to work perfectly off only legs and only reins, that way you can always offer support to the horse depending on the situation. Roping takes your hands away from the horse, he ought to know how to listen to your legs. Turning a cow in NRCHA is too fast for legs, the horse ought to know how to listen to the reins and follow where you point. In the initial training, it is all done with the reins and hackamore. I double a lot and direct their forward motion, I use a quirt or whip on the butt (lightly) to help keep forward motion consistent or add more of it. After the horse understands doubling as more of a rollback-like motion, rather than a barrel turn, he will likely pick up on the first signal to turn which is a neck-rein. Ideally doubling is neck rein, slack, bump, release, jump out the other way. Those are the cues in order. Also, I do not work very hard on neck reining, I let that become something that is learned more through proxy. After the horse can spin 180 or 360 and knows how to NOT tangle his feet, I will really begin to work on neck reining. And you might wonder how I teach a spin without neck reining, I essentially double twice and use a quirt on the outside hip to keep movement going. Assuming your horse understands neck reining and you are trying to polish it up, you would follow up the intial neck rein with either the direct rein, or outside leg. Be careful not to use so much outside leg that they look outward, most of the time using the inside rein as a correction is better. Sometimes I'll neck rein, then direct rein, THEN use my leg. That tends to be the best way I have found because it reinforces the cue while preventing a bad habit. That progression of cues tends to work better to teach greener horses, using your leg as a correction is usually reserved for more proficient horses...at least in my humble opinion. I hope this helps.