Oh Snap! | RES 074

Ride Every Stride | Horsemanship and Personal Growth with Van Hargis

If you’ve been around a while you know I love it when we get listener questions in. Recently, I got a few of the same question back to back—which I how I know it’s time to talk about it on the show. The question that’s been coming in is “Do you use snaps on reins?” What they mean is the small metal snap loops to attach the reins to a bit. The short answer to their question is this: no. The main reason for this is that I’m not a fan of metal on metal contact on anything having to do with equipment on horses. The reason for this is that it is distracting, the snap sliding over the bit is a harsh point of contact. I get why some people use snaps—it makes it easier to swap out reins. But the barrier of metal on metal is something that I find gets in the way of communicating what you want to the horse.

Key Takeaways

So what are some alternatives? Many people use nylon reins. These can come in all sorts of colors to match the rest of your equipment, and can be looped right on the bit. The thing about nylon is that it doesn’t have any give at all to it. There isn’t any elasticity there.

Leather is by far my preferred rein type. The water loop on the reins attaches directly to the bit, and it has just a little bit of stretch to it. I find that it makes for a slower, smoother way of communicating my thoughts through the reins to the horse. It just feels right to me, a little more natural and stylish in my opinion as well.

It’s of my mind that you want to keep safety and comfort for the horse at the forefront of your thoughts when thinking about materials you’re using to ride. For example, I see some people using nylon off billets to cinch their rigging. But as we said before, nylon has no give. If you don’t use any type of material that has give in it on your cinches, then you can make it harder for your horse’s lungs to expand and breathe. That’s the opposite of what we want to do.

If you’re interested in more ideas and alternatives go stop by a local riding competition. Take a peek at other people’s tack, specifically riders and competitors that are highly successful. They do things a certain way and use certain materials for a reason.

I want to give a very heartfelt shout out to SnodGrass Equipment—I had my arena drag stolen a while back and not being able to keep my arenas even and fluffy was driving me crazy. I emailed Randy Snodgrass, telling him how bummed out I was, and Randy took care of me—he just sent me another one. Talk about commitment to your customers there. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate Randy’s kindness and the quality of SnodGrass Equipment’s wares.

We also want to give a big thanks to Equi-racks who’ve been helping us out with the podcast and we’ve been using all their products on our new facilities on the ranch.

Also, if you’re a fan of the show please take time to head over and leave us an Itunes Review to give Laura and myself a glimpse of how we’ve helped you or what we could do better to help you ride every stride.