My first QH was spade trained so I had to be as well. They make fabulous bridleless horses.
Call me crazy but I think people who learned this type of riding are quieter and lighter in their hand use because you’re riding your body mostly.
Other disciplines learners often end up being hand dependant rather than seat dependant.
I think I read an article Jeremy Steinberg wrote about this and I believe Paul Belesik (spelling?) did a video with yarn attached to the reins.
My ASB trainer made me ride with reins that were not buckled around the bit. Just ran them through a single keeper. If you pulled they came off. I learned real quick to keep light contact.
I’d watch a class that did this.
It’s no mistake the saddle seat eq finals are called the “Good Hands” class.
I just watched some videos labeled “saddleseat equitation championship” and I don’t really see anything there to emulate. Bitted up, hollow, tense, inverted, flashy leg action. The riders do seem quiet but this isn’t some paragon of soft, connected riding. 
If someone wants to link a good example, I’m always open to learning.
It’s not supposed to be dressage, it’s a totally different style and they are looking for totally different things out of the horse and the training. But the hands themselves are what they are talking about.
A good saddleseat horse isn’t necessarily inverted. They appear to be inverted due to conformational differences. It isn’t necessarily a penalty for them to BE inverted which makes it difficult, and many of them have the conformational defect of a low back, others with a long back, due to genetics, that doesn’t help matters. And they want them to be flashy and look like a horse that is right at the edge of explosion. That’s literally the goal. Totally the opposite of dressage, which starts (or should start) with relaxation.
Regardless, the folks were talking about rein contact, so if we could keep the focus on that, that would be superb.
A horse does NOT have to be hauled on in the mouth to have a good soft connection over the back. I think we can agree on that, right?
I, personally, believe that a lot of the hauling on the mouth came with the move away from the lighter Iberian-type and through the heavier earlier warmblood types who were all too happy to have you carry around their heads. While they have evolved beyond that with an infusion of lighter blood, they are still very horizontally balanced and need you to help them with that balance, compared to an iberian type that is born in that balance. They are athletic, sure, but it’s a different balance point. Every warmblood I’ve ever ridden, even the hotter ones, seem to be super happy to have you carry them around. They are a very different ride. While the iberian-types are harder to get to extend and come over the topline and get to relax, the warmbloods are tougher to package up and get them to sit. Hence, the “overriding” - and many of them will take it.
Not all of them, which is why some of them, IMO, flame out and react spectacularly explosively.
And this is good riding…why?
Good is relative. It’s a different goal, with different horses bred for a totally different purpose.
The point the other posters brought up was that the REIN contact was taught to them to be very light.
I don’t know why this forum ALWAYS does this, it’s most unbecoming.
Unfortunately saddle seat light involves a whole 'nother type of “abuse”…I saw too much of it when I was younger and vet told me he was injecting the backs/SI all the time.
Hocks often. I haven’t seen a whole lot of back injections, some SI yes. But maybe they’ve gotten better about saddles and padding since your youth. I’m in a heavy SS area, and maybe I’ve just been exposed to the “good ones” but these horses get the same treatment that dressage horses do, including PEMF, beemer, chiro, etc. etc.
Again - that wasn’t the point, I don’t believe.
Edited to add: And I’m not denying that abuse goes on in Saddleseat barns…or Hunter/Jumper barns…or Western barns…or insert discipline of choice that we’re using to deflect from the fact that dressage is getting poked at barns here
Just to be clear…
I just hate the argument that “they’re worse”
It’s just not true. There are good and bad in EVERY discipline. And every single discipline has good and bad that they can take from each other.
Every discipline has its bad apples. If we’re going to dismiss one out of hand because someone somewhere is doing bad things, then maybe we should throw all our tack away, take their halters off, and turn them out.
Eh. I’ve sat on some $$ saddle seat horses and not one moved through the back or understood how to take contact. You give them their head and they fall forward or go nose to chin. I went to twelve barns across the southeast looking for a dressage prospect about a decade ago and only found one horse that had an educated basic understanding of how to seek the hand. It was still pretty dicey but at least he understood how to follow a hand. The horse stretching into the hand and closing the contact loop is the foundation of actual connection vs a horse tolerating rein pressure. It’s not hard to have a whisper quiet hand when you’re on a horse that’s braced through the base of the neck, has zero lateral flexibility, and only needs to understand that reins mean change gaits. Ive got a number of friends who have ASBs for dressage or general pleasure. All say that it’s nearly impossible to fix the contact issues once they start saddleseat training and buy 2 year olds (that of course were already started) but while they are still flat shod and not in tail sets yet. It’s not the discipline I would use as the gold standard for contact.
I have ASBs that do dressage.
They are incorrect. 
They can be re-educated as to how to seek the hand in a dressage way, but it is DIFFERENT in saddleseat.
What I was speaking of was the back, not the mouth. The inversion, that is. They do not want the contact the same, no.
Whatever.
All I’ll say here is that one of the highest compliments I have ever gotten was in my youth from a Saddlebred breeder who told me she trusted me on her very fancy horse because of my light hands.
As far as I’m concerned, none of today’s equitation on the flat be it hunter, saddle seat, or western is near what it used to be.
But I’m just an old fart.
I just had to say this again, because this drives me SO batty.
Let’s rephrase this to be:
I sat on some dressage horses and not one of them knew how to get showy and raise up to the bridle. They just wanted to dive down and get rounder and lower and heavier in the bridle vs squatting and really coming up.
It’s a different discipline. They want different things.
Sometimes saddleseat trainers get confused about it too and think a horse looks like a dressage horse when it’s all tense and flinging it’s legs around but it’s “round” but come on folks, we’re BETTER than this.
What does that mean? That you can’t stand that idea that saddleseat is an awful way to teach a horse to be ridden? Because it is. I get that you appreciate saddleseat and you know the difference between how those horses go and dressage horses go. But many of us dressage riders think it’s awful. There is no point to it. The point of dressage is to produce a horse that is relaxed, happy in its work, and a better horse to ride. Yes, there’s competitive dressage, and the crux of this conversation is that competitive dressage seems to have thrown all the basic principles out the window for flashy gaits and inflated scores. You don’t like people dissing saddleseat, go start a thread about how wonderful it is in a forum other than dressage. Here, you’re going to get pushback. (For the record, I hold Western “pleasure” in equal disdain.)
You’re right.
I hate dressage snobs.
I think it sh*ts all over the discipline and makes the discipline look bad. And I think it’s part of the reason dressage is squarely in the target of both horsey and non-horsey public ire. Dressage snobs continue to hold themselves up as the “end all be all” of training and say that they are the bastion of beautiful training, and then look! The emperor has no clothes.
I also think it shows a remarkable lack of equine education. I’ve noticed that the more one actually learns about horses, the less one does things like this.
It’s not just saddleseat. I hate that we do it to other disciplines in general.
I love dressage.
But some of the riders, eh, not so much.
What’s this “we?” Do you have a mouse in your pocket? I don’t do it to other disciplines. I am not a “dressage snob.” I started my riding career (over 50 years ago) riding western. I judge Western Dressage to this day. I love it. I love Reining - that is a super cool bit of training there and those guys don’t touch the horse’s mouth. I love Eventing and H/J. I spent a decade competing H/J and teaching beginning jumping. I love working equitation and I don’t care what kind of saddle you ride in. I love driving sports. I love in-hand work. I simply hate Saddleseat. Again, it has no purpose. It is derived from plantation owners needing a sturdy, comfortable riding horse to move around their plantations on. That’s why some saddleseat horses are gaited. I’m sure you know more about the history than I do. It’s simply a flat saddle on an upside down horse trotting around with its head in the air. I will not give it the same respect I give to other disciplines. I’m not a fan of bullfighting either, but damn those horses are well trained and magnificent. So rather than get defensive and insult dressage “snobs,” tell me why saddleseat is good for the horse. Why is it such a great way to ride? Especially for those who don’t want to compete? And for the record, I’ve retrained a number of former saddleseat horses. I love American Saddlebreds and have trained and (shock) even owned a few.
Please- ALL Y’ALL- take these veritable tomes of back and forth about Saddleseat vs Dressage to another thread entirely.
Nah. I’ve just been on the internet for more than 5 minutes.
We on these forums.
We on every single saddleseat picture, video, reel, etc. etc. We, sporthorse-people.
That’s my background by the way. Dressage, eventing and hunter-jumpers. Did that for almost 40 years now. Up until 10 years ago I knew ASBs as Amish horses. Learned about saddlebreds beyond that thanks to a friend on these boards who introduced me to my first dressage saddlebred. Got a second one and encountered breed-snobbery from the dressage-community that I was WHOLLY unprepared for. So I got introduced to the saddleseat community and learned about a whole different world, which I spent a significant time asking questions, keeping an open mind, and experiencing. I went to a number of different barns, trying to figure out what they were trying to do, asking about equipment, and learning about the horses.
I’ll honor djones request, but if you’d like to honestly learn more about the differences, I’m happy to discuss them. The horses are built differently, and truly - none of the disciplines are really “good for” horses. Yes, dressage “develops” the horse’s body, but did they really ask for that? Truly, they’d really rather just be sitting around eating. Jumping isn’t “good for” them. Eventing isn’t “good for” them. Chasing cows isn’t “good for” them.
I reckon the horse made a good trade being with us, better than getting eaten by wolves in the wild. But pretending that your discipline is better than another is just kinda gross.
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