‘I never make a horse do anything – I suggest, he responds’: how long-reining could take your horse from unbacked youngster right up to grand prix

I’d never fully understood long-reining before. I’d done it, with horses coming back from injury, and planned to do it, with my young home-bred when she gets to that stage – but had not realised just how much more there can be to it.

But the way long-reining specialist Berith Eriksson does it is something else entirely. It truly is riding from the ground; I watched in awe as my mare was working beautifully within minutes, the lightest aids encouraging suppleness, straightness, rhythm and impulsion.

Seeing what she could do without a rider made me appreciate what she can do with, and having had one session with Berith, she is going better under saddle as well. I can’t wait to learn more about it, and use its benefits for more horses.

Long-reining: for training horses at any level

It’s fair to say that in the UK, long-reining is mainly seen as something for young horses as part of the pre-backing process, helpful for rehabilitation after injury or a period out of work – and that’s about it. But for Berith, her clients and their horses, it’s so, so much more than that.

Berith is a dressage rider and coach who for more than 35 years has specialised in what she describes as “riding from the ground”.

“Talking about long-reining is like opening a book of 500 pages,” she says. “There’s so much we can do with this.”

Berith was born in Sweden, where long-reining plays a far bigger part in horses’ ongoing training, and completed a university degree in equestrianism, which included passing an exam in long-reining.

“We use it for any training, of any horse at any level,” she says. “I was always very interested as I’ve been producing horses since I was very little and never had ready-made ones, and I love to learn.

“We learned from very good trainers at the university, and I’ve continued to use it in training horses and riders.”

How long-reining can give feel of riding from the ground – and more

Berith’s long-reining is different to many other ways of doing it; she uses a leather roller that’s hinged, to help it fit in such a balanced way that the girth does not have to be tight, allowing the horse to stay relaxed.

She uses long leather reins rather than lunge lines, to be able to feel the contact as she would from the saddle, and the outside rein runs through a ring high on the other side of the roller and back into the hand.

“You never get the same contact into the hand if you have a long line behind the tail,” she explains.

But the other benefit of having the rein in such a position is that it acts as the inside leg would; with a touch of it on the flank, the horse can work laterally, shoulder-fore or leg-yielding. Berith often has barely a contact on the reins as the horse can be in true self-carriage.

“Sometimes even the most experienced riders can have a negative impact by over-managing the horse’s balance, hindering the opportunity to developing self-carriage,” she says. “I suggest – I never make a horse do anything, but you can suggest to the horse, and then he responds. That’s the part of training we can do with long-reining, much more than riding.”

Berith uses the three types of aid in long-reining as with riding. The reins are obvious, the outside rein is “the perfect leg aid – we don’t press, we touch”, as above, and her seat aid is her legs and posture on the ground.

“When I’m standing in the middle, I go with the horse,” she says. “If I straighten myself up and change the rhythm in my feet, the horse comes back to me exactly the same as when you’re riding and using your seat, when you slow down your rising trot.

“It’s magic but that is what happens. You use the three aids, and can improve the riding, how the horse picks up the rider’s aids, by doing it on the long reins.”

“I’m the horse’s interpreter”

Berith says she acts as an interpreter for the horse; and that each horse can tell her a great deal.

“I’m basically giving people a riding lesson while I am on the ground,” she says. “I might never have seen them ride, but I can feel in the horse how they’re being ridden.

“If they ride with too much leg aid all the time, if it’s a ‘lazy’ horse – they say, but horses are not lazy – because it’s been bombarded with this leg aid all the time. I can see that and they agree, and then we work on it. We work through the scales of training, and get the horse to improve its way of going.

“Sometimes I let them take one rein and I take the other. Some learn to do it but most want to see the horse being long-reined by me, because I can show it coming from themselves. People get quite emotional when they see it, and it’s lovely.”

Berith works with horses of all levels, from youngsters learning the very basics to grand prix dressage horses, tailoring the programme for each as a rider would do.

“Pole work is very good for motivation,” she adds “We can’t forget that we’re working with horses. They love to have fun, and it should be positive; there can be too much seriousness involved.”

New inspiration

Berith says in her experience, most horses enjoy the work on the long reins, and the riders enjoy it too, as they see what the horse can do, and gain inspiration for ridden training. And whatever the rider or owner’s goal, she can help.

“Some people just need that guidance,” she says. “How life is nowadays, all the pressure with and what’s happening in the world; there’s so much stress. So when you come to the stable, you don’t want more stress and feel you’re not good enough, or you can’t and you’re afraid of your horse.

“All this pressure you put yourself under, and that’s something I can help with. ‘This is your horse, this is how it moves and what it needs to be able to do. Let’s start here and build on it’.

“I’ve had people cry when they see how well the horse moves, and I say, ‘This is what it can do being ridden from the ground – it can do it with you too’.”

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