Reining facts for kids
A competitor performing the sliding stop, one of the signature moves of a reining horse
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| Highest governing body | International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI) |
|---|---|
| First played | United States |
| Characteristics | |
| Contact | no |
| Team members | individual and team at international levels |
| Mixed-sex | yes |
| Type | indoor or outdoor |
| Equipment | horse, western saddle and related horse tack |
| Venue | Arena indoor or outdoor with dirt or similar footing suitable for the horse |
| Presence | |
| Country or region | Worldwide |
Reining is a fun and exciting competition where riders guide a horse through a special set of moves. It's like a dance for horses! In reining, horses perform cool moves such as spins, sliding stops, rollbacks, and changing leads (which leg they use to lead their gallop).
There are twelve official patterns that riders usually follow. Sometimes, riders can even do a freestyle routine. This is where they create their own pattern and perform it to music. All of these amazing moves are done while riding with a western saddle.
What is Reining?
Reining is a unique type of horse riding that comes from the work cowboys did on ranches. They needed horses that were quick, agile, and could respond instantly to their commands. This helped them control cattle. Over time, these useful skills turned into a competitive sport.
How Reining Competitions Work
In a reining competition, riders guide their horses through a specific pattern of moves. These patterns include fast gallops, sudden stops, quick turns, and precise circles. The rider uses only one hand to guide the horse, showing how well they can control their animal.
There are twelve different patterns that judges use. Each pattern has a series of required moves. The rider and horse are judged on how well they perform each part of the pattern.
Judging the Performance
Judges watch closely to see how the horse and rider work together. They look for how smooth and easy the horse's movements are. Points can be added or taken away based on how well each move is done.
- If a move is done perfectly, no points are added or removed.
- If a move is done very well, the judge might add points. This means the performance was excellent!
- If a move is done poorly, the judge will remove points. This shows the horse or rider had some trouble.
The judge also looks at how obedient the horse is. If the horse seems easy to control and moves smoothly, it shows good obedience. If the horse resists or struggles, points might be removed.
Each performance usually takes about five minutes. After the rider and horse finish their pattern, the judge gives them a score out of seventy points. This score shows how well they performed the entire routine.
Images for kids
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Circles are performed at speed
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The spin is one of the most difficult and crowd-pleasing maneuvers.
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A proper sliding stop requires a horse to keep its head down, back rounded, hindquarters well underneath the body, and to "walk" with the front legs as the hind legs slide.
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A competitor in Freestyle reining, dressed as Miss Piggy
