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Thanks for posting this because we are using training aids on one horse that just gets so tense to try and work on relaxation. I believe that she will build the muscles and lean to trust us so we can begin regular work again.
[QUOTE=Eclectic Horseman;2998775]
Reschools are different.
The horse’s muscles have “memory.” You not only want to build up the correct muscles, but you have to allow the incorrect muscles to atrophy. In order to get them to atrophy, they have to not be used at all. The horse needs to relearn how to balance himself and the rider without using that muscle. He has to learn to move all over again.
If the horse has a hypertrophied under neck muscle, you may not be able to disengage that muscle without a lot of incorrect hand riding, that results in the horse disengaging at the withers in the downward direction, or breaking at the neck in a false frame or headset. So it is counterproductive.
In extreme cases with horses with big cow-like underneck muscles, I have used a chambon/degogue to help the horse to find a new way of balancing himself. A running martingale can performs somewhat the same function in a not so extreme case.
You cannot always “go by the book” when reschooling horses, but the goal is to get them to a place where you can go by the book as soon as possible without creating other problems.[/QUOTE]
Well-stated. Building new muscle memory and strength sometimes requires the reins to be in a position that we would not ordinarily hold them in. The running martingale will pull the rein down low, on the bars of the mouth, but we would not ever carry our hands that low. Instead our hands always seek the straight line from bit to mouth, and ask the horse to reach into our hand with our elbow as the fulcrum, not the middle of the rein as the fulcrum. Nor do we attach side reins up above the withers, where we’d carry our hands. The tools do things our hands can’t do alone, and sometimes that’s useful. But don’t think that because the horse begins to go well in a running martingale that the horse will necessarily go well without it. Then it’s up to the rider to teach the horse how to deal with the rein alone. The re-formed muscle memory will help with that, but it’s not an end unto itself.
I too have used them for re-training a couple of star grazers as I’ve mentioned here in the past. Heads so high and under neck so delevoped that I also added a shadow roll. I only used them for several weeks until the horse learned that it was OK to trust the hand. The rider must fit and use it correctly. If if doesn’t make a difference in that several weeks, it’s not going to and look for another solution. I don’t use standing martingales.
Ah yes but look carefully when you see them in the hunters. 99% of the time they are adjusted such that the horse could touch his toes or reach back and touch his tail. They are primarily fashionable, not functional in the hunter ring.
I have to agree with Eclectic Horseman…this is not only about retraining the correct muscle use, it is about atrophying the overly developed incorrect muscles. And that doesn’t happen overnight.
And I strongly disagree with RileyT that the reason one should use a martingale is because the rider is having connection problems 
Maybe that’s a use for it in beginner lessons, but there are much more valid uses for them or we wouldn’t see some top riders using them in showjumping.
[QUOTE=flshgordon;3001342]
I have to agree with Eclectic Horseman…this is not only about retraining the correct muscle use, it is about atrophying the overly developed incorrect muscles. And that doesn’t happen overnight.
And I strongly disagree with RileyT that the reason one should use a martingale is because the rider is having connection problems Maybe that’s a use for it in beginner lessons, but there are much more valid uses for them or we wouldn’t see some top riders using them in showjumping.[/QUOTE]
Right.
When you are show jumping, no matter how accomplished the rider and well trained the horse, there are moments when the rider has to take a stronger, less polite hold on a horse getting too strong.
That is when the martingale keeps the horse’s head from swinging way out of control.
In jumpers, not all rounds are pretty, even and smooth, as in a hunter class.
When you put it on the line, with great efforts over big jumps and tricky distances on short times, things can get a little rough in spots.:yes:
If your horse has a tendency to swing his head when in those tight spots, those are the ones you use a running martingale for, just in case the situation happens.
[QUOTE=flshgordon;3001342]
And I strongly disagree with RileyT that the reason one should use a martingale is because the rider is having connection problems Maybe that’s a use for it in beginner lessons, but there are much more valid uses for them or we wouldn’t see some top riders using them in showjumping.[/QUOTE]
When I read this Flash, I actually had to go back and look at my posts because I thought… “Is that what I said?” Upon review, its really not what I said, although I can certainly understand why you interpreted it this way. In any event, just to make myself clear… I agree 100% that a rider having connection problems should NOT reach for a running martingale as a solution. As you and I both know, since the rings float, it won’t aid in establishing a connection (unlike side-reins) What I meant to convey is, that with retraining projects, and “novice” riders, they sometimes don’t really know how to establish the connection properly (i.e. without the martingale). I agree that the martingale really doesn’t DO anything to help establish the connection, other than keep the horse from giraffe-ing. On the other hand, with a competent rider, sometimes all the help they need is to keep the horse from giraffe-ing, and then they can get the horse connected on their own. Am I making any sense?
GOOD THING ALL auxilliary aids work well, i prefer the chambon and de gogue for the method of getting long and low and on the contact better than running martingale which is used more over fences, but all the arabian crowd trains with the running martingale on the flat and has numerous rings on theirs, it is more like a running yoke with adjustments, once muscles are developed you can usually properly ride with your hands and the horse stay in the position he carried himself in the martingale or training equipment used
Good Thing!!!
If it works then why not use it. Sometimes you need to use extreme measures for extreme issues. If a horse regularly goes around like a giraffe it’s going to take a lot of consistent low work to correct it. A martingale seems like a perfect solution to ensure that the head and neck does not continue to be up in the air. By lowering the frame you can ask the horse to come through from behind without them running away through the front.
I don’t like them because of the downward pull on the snaffle. There is no way a rider can ever exert the same kind of feel on the snaffle.
Horses ridden in them regularly (and many saddleseat horses are) feel different than a dressage horse should, for the exact reason Rileyt mentions: they set the head, but don’t bring the back up–they tend to back off the snaffle because of the downward pull on the bars of their jaw and the tongue. It’s a false feel.
They are useful in nosebleed situations, not generally for reshaping the musculature of a retrain project.
I also agree with Kathy, I don’t like them because they pull down on the snaffle reins. The snaffle bit raises the horse’s head, the running martingale pulls it down. For me it’s like hitting yourself over the head with a baseball bat while you gulp down aspirins.
I do think they make the horse feel different when one rides them. I do think there are better ways to school horses, and I don’t feel that what works in show jumping is how I would choose to school a dressage horse. I wouldn’t school a dressage horse in anything I couldn’t show him in. Other peopel would, I am not attacking them, I am saying I would not.
It’s the same as standing next to a horse and pulling down on the reins to get him to put his head down. Yes you can get him to give and put hsi head down. He drops the bit and drops his head. Therein lies the problem. I don’t want the horse to drop the bit - ever.
I don’t actually think they work that well for keeping the horse’s head down in bad situations unless the rider is very strong and the martingale is adjusted quite short. For a weaker rider I don’t think it helps, I think all it does is dull the bars of the mouth in either case. I realize some situations are bad, such as a horse hitting the rider with his neck. I would use soemthing else in those cases.
Yes they do exert a downward pull on the snaffle. But only when the horse hits the end of the martingale and creates that pull himself. You can vary the adjustment of the martingale.
Saddleseat riders use running martingales, but they have much shorter yokes on them so the martingale is always in effect. I am retraining a saddleseat horse and one of his biggest problems is he has no idea what actual contact is because he is used to setting against the martingale. I will never use a martingale on him.
I used a running martingale on a horse that would flip it’s head up very high and bolt. At those moments the martingale came into instant effect and I was able to force the horse to a stop. As soon as the bolt was halted the martingale would go limp and dangly. This was a horse that had developed bolting as a severe response to prior training and would bolt a dozen times in a ride and the bolting would morph into rearing, spinning, and more bolting.
So the martingale might be in effect for 10 seconds.
With the martingale I was able to gain instant control over the horse, and force the horse to think about things instead of running in a blind panic. I noticed a huge change after using the martingale for a week, I was able to stop the bolt with a small pull on the rein, then eventually by saying whoa, and the bolts became shorter and less frantic. So, the martingale only had a leverage effect during the bolt.
I agree. I would not use a running martingale for a horse that needs help lowering his head to use his back. I would use one on a bolter or one that lifts his head to EVADE and take advantage of the rider on trail and such but not for reschooling a horse to travel correctly. In fact, for horses that tend to lift their heads and bolt a standing seems to work best for some cases. My boarder is one of them.
In the instance described by the OP I believe it is going to create a false head set as others have suggested.
For a horse that needs help using his back as well as building muscle correctly I would recommend hillwork at the w/t both up and down. Start off with only a few repetitions and go from there. You will be able to assess whether or not the horse is tiring easier too rather than forcing a horse to work with it’s head constrained and likely causing muscle soreness elsewhere in the body. This will be helpful since it will hopefully aid in preventing the horse from getting overworked and sore. The problem with alot of gadgets is that often times the rider asks the horse to work in a position their body is not used for too long of a period (often unintentionally) and it results in soreness.
Hillwork has worked for many horses I’ve known and I always recommend it for building back and hind end muscle before resorting to gadgets.
From the perspective of a scribe listening to a judge’s comments-- Judges can tell every time when a horse is consistently ridden in them. I’ve scribed a few thousand tests with more than a dozen judges. Be very careful with this.
All of you seem hung on describing the IMPROPER use of running martingales.
Yes, they won’t work as intended if you are trying to use them so short as to affect your reins most of the time. They are not supposed to be used like that.:rolleyes:
We started and trained many dressage horses, to the upper levels and running martingales, properly adjusted, were standard issue, even if there maybe was one horse in hundreds that may have needed one for a minute of resistences.
They were, as a seat belt goes with cars, just there, part of our training equipment.
Maybe today people don’t use them like that any more, since they really didn’t come in play that much and there are other ways to ride thru those moments where they may have helped.
We were training six or more horses every day and some of them were very green and may have a green moment, where the martingale may have saved someone’s nose, that is why they were standard training equipment for us.
I see many people here using them too tight and CAUSING horses to go inverted with them, also because those people don’t know how to ride a horse in any kind of balance, much less on the aids, they don’t have the concepts at all.
THAT is improper use of running martingales and in sad reality, is the least of those rider’s problems.
Your experience is different from mine. I don’t think I have ever seen a running martingale on any dressage horse, scrounging thru brain, no, I still can’t remember even one. And they have never been standard issue in any barn I’ve ever been in. I’ve never seen one in a warmup at a recognized show on a dressage horse, and I do not think most people think of them as standard equipment for schooling dressage horses at any stage.
I agree. Not even Margaret Webber, who retrains more OTTB’s than anyone else I know, routinely uses a runnning martingale. And she would have more excuse to use one than anyone else I know, considering she trial rides those horses within days of them coming off the track.
Sometimes it’s about the lesser of two evils. A horse that goes around with its head in the air is often a tense horse with no rhythm who runs from leg and hand. Usually when you get the head down it helps the horse to relax and become more rhythmic. Although repeated use of an aid will cause them to “set the head” rather than seeking the contact they will also be assisted in achieving the first two elements of the training scale. From there you can show them how to seek the bit because they are in a much better position to do this than when they were craning like a giraffe.
Again, if an aid helps then use it. Don’t plan on sticking with it forever but keep it in your tool box, use it as necessary and then put it back in the tool box.
I am still gettign the idea that some of you so set against using a running martingale have never used one, or not used or seen it used correctly.
When you have seen a horse with one, immediately you have assumed all a horse is doing wrong is because of that martingale, even if you can’t really evaluate if it is even adjusted right or maybe that rider also doesn’t know how to use one or maybe even ride at all.
Many people do put one on when they have a giraffe type horse and no, it doesn’t do any good, if the rider doesn’t know any more about how to train than using gadgets, so maybe you only have seen the bad and the ugly.
Like any other tool out there, a running martingale can be use properly and do what is supposed to do, by those that know how.:yes:
Actually I have used running martingales and I have seen them used correctly (as well as incorrectly). I do agree that they are a useful piece of equipment in the jumper ring, XC or out trailriding to prevent a high headed horse from lifting it’s head above the contact and bolting etc…
I do not agree that a running martingale should be used in a shortened manner to tie down, lock or “encourage” a horse to lower it’s head. In this case a running martingale would be a gadget being used incorrectly.
If the running martingale really is being used properly and for it’s designed purpose it has NO point in dressage unless one is riding a bolter, spooker etc…that lifts it’s head way above the contact to run off etc… In such cases it will do nothing to help build muscle in the neck or encourage the horse to drop it’s head etc…
A running martingale properly adjusted WILL NOT come into effect unless the horse GROSSLY lifts it’s head above the contact. How is this going to help in reschooling for dressage???
