Happy Autumn! Fall is falling in my area, and with it the show season is wrapping up. It’s a good time to take a deep breath, relax from our summer endeavors and redirect our efforts. If I had a motto it would be “take it back to basics”. Not sure what to do in your riding time? Horse struggling to nail the canter transition? Struggling to get a good sidepass? Horse nervous riding out alone? – for all, my answer is “go back to basics”. When you’re stuck or your horse is uncomfortable with a task the solution is ALWAYS in your foundational training and/or riding. Even if the issue is a physical problem, going back to basics will help to puzzle out the issue.
The Challenge and Choices
In the pursuit of our ambitions during warmer months it is easy to let our grasp on the basics slip. This is a good season to begin resetting and rebuilding. In the spirit of “back to basics” my challenge to everyone this month is to get rid of all the extra tack and gadgets we may have experimented with this year and go back to basic snaffle type bits. I’m using the term loosely, meaning any direct pull bit with no leverage.
It could be a mullen mouth, three piece, single break snaffle mouthpiece or even a Waterford. It could have D-rings, O rings, full or half cheeks. The bit should go in your bridle in such a way that the cheek piece of the bridle, the reins and the mouth piece all connect to the same ring, as pictured below. This creates direct pressure between the mouthpiece and the reins.
What your bit should NOT have for this challenge are shanks or gags (which also require some form of a shank to operate). And for the sake of honest riding please stay away from twisted wire bits or chains for mouthpieces. Keep it honest and just see where this little adventure leads! There are still lots of choices to pick from, but fewer ways to cheat!
What Riding in a basic snaffle-type bit does for you and your horse
Nothing I say can fully describe how much this could change your riding. The main impact is that riding with no extra leverage on your horse’s mouth will directly cause your body to seek other means of feeling secure. As a result, you will start working more with your seat and leg which in turn makes your hands become quieter and more effective. The rider gains an opportunity to feel more connection with the horse through the reins and hopefully begin to undo tensions in the horse that may have arisen when “bitted up”.
We humans are handsy creatures and just love to over-use our reins! Since our horses are the vehicles we are driving to our riding goals, we need to put our horse first. Without the cooperation of your equine partner, you are left on foot – or rear end if you tick him off bad enough! Simplifying our riding to a direct pull bit means the rider feels the same pressure on the reins as the horse. This gives us more accurate perception of how we are riding. By removing the temptation to overuse our leveraged bit, we can help undo the tension and evasiveness that can form in your horse. No one, not even our horses can do best work when they are tense or guarded about taking direction.
It is very likely that when you switch bits, you will have to temporarily slow down your riding. Both horse and rider will need a little time to relearn how to do the more exciting things without the artificial control created by leveraged bits.
Final Thoughts
If you already ride with a direct pull bit, other items you might want to try riding without are martingales, tie downs, flash straps and draw reins. I’m not making any judgments about using these things, just offering some ideas. All of our tack are tools, and used appropriately can be helpful. However it can be difficult to know when we have overstepped in relying on our tack. Any time we can identify an artificial aid in our riding, we should make some efforts periodically to learn to ride well without it. If we do not, we allow these tools and artificial aids to become crutches to lean on rather than pursuing real progress as a riding pair with our horses. Our horses want partnership – it is how herds work. So go play with your horse and try to become an active member of his herd!
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