Long Reining needs a lot of patient practice, you cannot afford to make mistakes you have a little more margin for error when you Lunge as you are attached to the Horse's nose so if the horse moves more quickly than you anticipate the worst that can happen will be a strong pull on the Lunge Cavesson. Whereas if you make a mistake while long reining you are normally attached directly to the horse's mouth and at best will jab the horse in the mouth and at worst you can actually damage and bruise the bars the lips and the tongue.

The main reasons for long reining are:

· To teach a young Horse to move by voice command with the trainer out of sight or partially out of site.

· To teach a young Horse to move forward confidently.

· To mouth a young or untrained horse.

· To improve the Horse's balance and co-ordination.

· To improve the Horse's carriage and paces.

· For the more advanced training of horses.

There are several methods of long reining. You will need to decide which method is most suitable for you and the work programme you have decided on. If you decide on a method that involves long reining closely behind your horse then you will need to be very fit and fairly fast as continuous trotting is very tiring! As you do not want to be juggling metres of rein your reins can be considerably shorter for this method. You may decide to Long Rein so that you have the option to bring the Horse around on a circle or to go in straight lines. This method requires reins that allow the Horse to circle at the very least 20 metres around the trainer.

Voice commands must be simple, clear and different from each other so the horse can easily understand and not get confused by two words sounding the same. You need to decide which words you will use for each movement and then say exactly the same word every time. The upward transition commands should be said with an upward lift to the voice encouraging the horse to move forward and increase pace. All downward transition commands should have a downward low tone to them and be long and drawn out to allow the horse time to carry out the movement. Try using the horse's name first in all upward transitions once the Horse knows its name it becomes easy to gain its attention.

When training Carriage Horses that may be driven using more than one horse at a time this makes it possible to single out one horse without causing the other Horses to also respond. If one horse is hanging back you call its name, because each horse is accustomed to move forward in response to its name it pays attention and moves forward.