Jessica Jahiel's HORSE-SENSE Newsletter Archives

Quick fixes II

From: Melanie Hi Jessica! I really love horse sense but I'm confused about something you said in a horse-sense article a while back, so I hope you can explain this. You said to stay away from "quick fixes" at clinics, and to watch out for people who just want to put the horse in tight nosebands and draw reins and things like that. But what about just riding the horse differently, isn't that a "quick fix" too? We had a clinician come to our barn, and he made all of us ride bending forward with the reins really low, holding the reins on our thighs, about halfway down to our knees. He said that this was how we had to put our horses on the bit. The horses really tucked their heads in, but I didn't think that you would like this even though we didn't use any gadgets. What do you think about this? Is something like this still a "quick fix" even if we don't use any different tack?

Thank you for everything! Melanie

Hi Melanie -- what a great question this is! You are absolutely right: quick fixes are not useful, and this IS a mechanical "quick fix" even though you weren't asked to use any new gadgets. When you hold the reins with inflexible, unyielding arms and enforce it by keeping your hands ON your thighs, you are making yourself into a pair of "human side reins". It takes away two vital parts of your communication with your horse: you can't ASK and you can't GIVE, all you can do is hold the reins in a fixed, low position and wait for the horse to drop its head and duck behind the bit to avoid the discomfort.

I really dislike the expression "on the bit" anyway -- it always seems to make riders focus on the part of the horse they can SEE -- the neck and head. I prefer "on the aids", which involves the WHOLE horse. And as for "putting the horse on the bit" by pulling its head and neck into a particular position, forget it -- the horse won't be on the bit at all. The secret, which isn't really a secret at all, is that you need to ride the horse forward from behind -- if his hindquarters are in the right place and his back is in the right place, the head and neck will AUTOMATICALLY find their own place, which will BE the right place. This will vary according to the horse's conformation, strength, suppleness, and level of training, so there's no such thing as "one-position-fits-all". Trying to achieve a false silhouette by pulling the horse's head and neck inward will hurt your training, and can damage the horse.

What you've described is a DANGEROUS "quick fix" -- it will teach your horse to curl up behind the bit, and once the horse learns to do THAT, it can take months or years to coax it to UNcurl its neck and move normally. In the meantime, the shortened, tense neck that this practice creates will set up a whole series of problems, stiff muscles, and potential for lameness all through the horse's neck, back, hindquarters, and even in the hind legs! It's NOT worth doing this, especially since the best you can hope to achieve is the creation of a "false frame" -- a horse that carries its head down and in, NOT because it is working correctly through the back from behind, but because it's being ridden from front to back and forced into a particular position.

And one more thing -- this is 'horse-sense' not 'people-sense', but you should know that riding in that position (back rounded, hands on thighs, arms rigid) will set up the same sort of stiffness and pain in YOUR body as in your horse's body: your neck and back will suffer.

YES there are "quick fixes" that don't involve any new or different equipment -- this is one of them, and good on you for figuring this out!!

Jessica

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