Yes I have seen that before. The quarter horse and paint I saw looked and rode like the dressage horse, except for the sliding stop. I presume it changed to reining when asked, as I have always said a dressage horse can do anything.
What do you mean by āin the two reinā? 
Thank you
The two rein is a bridle horse stage. You have a small bosalita (hackamore) and the spade. They have separate reins.
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Musing about contactā¦ I think you are looking at it the wrong way round. The horse takes the contact, not the rider. We merely facilitate it by offering a steady and appropriate place to move into. You simply canāt force it.
Once the horse takes the contact, it puts itself in a safe ābox.ā You can feel it step under itself and the shoulders come up, as well as the āhand-holdingā feel. The old circle of recycling energy thing. Thereās a lot of trust there from the horse that we are not going to pull the rug out from underneath him. We have to maintain our steady end of the bargain, providing the front parameters of the boxā¦
Thats when you get that intoxicating ācentaurā feel.
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Iāve heard and understood this as well as experienced this on a trained horse. BUT on an untrained horse, they will not simply go into a contact, even on side reins, just because itās there. You can drive them quite forward and unless the side reins are fairly taut to begin with, they donāt just arrive there. And even if they are, they can invent quite creative ways of getting around it.
In fact, I have found (in the past) that side reins encouraged leaning or ducking.
They donāt want pressure in their mouths. You have to teach them to accept it. This, by itās nature, is an aversive (as is the girth, but will address that in a second).
The girth is an aversive, but apart from riding saddleless (or not riding at all) we really have no choice in the matter since glue isnāt strong enough to hold a saddle up there. So we teach the horse to ignore the feeling of the belly band (and most of them do). It is meaningless. Dead.
Side reins are similar. Long enough that they are avoidable they will be avoided (on a green bean), short enough to be a constant feel and they donāt say anything at all. They are, in effect, dead. Elasticated side reins and donuts either bounce and irritate or encourage leaning. To use them properly you must drive the horse into them.
Now I will say that a horse who is tremendously out of lateral and vertical balance to begin with, may more willingly drive into the bit because they need something to lean on around a circle. I found this with the warmbloods and thoroughbreds that I worked with.
Keep in mind, Iām NOT saying itās abusive. An aversive isnāt necessarily abusive just because itās an aversive. The leg is an aversive, the flag is an aversive etc. Iām not saying itās horrible, or that dressage is horrible, or anything like that. But it IS an aversive and you do need to teach the horse to ignore the fact that youāre holding their hands all the time.
Signal folks also use the aversive, but they use it in very very small doses. The idea is that we donāt want to deaden the mouth or have the aid ever be ignored or confused. We want to distinguish clearly the difference between on and off.
We still want the back to come up. We still want the horseās legs to feel like our legs. We donāt want them to poke around on their forehands or sit above the bit. Iāve experienced the centaur feeling with both dressage horses and well trained western horses and other than the extravagance of the gaits it feels about the same. Iāve seen bridle horses that were warmbloods that looked very much like an UL dressage horse.
I do believe that a great deal of the difference is that as Scribbler mentioned, you donāt necessarily want quite the same sensitivity that a good reiner or bridle horse has. If you watched the cowboy/dressage horse video above, youāll note that at first the dressage rider has trouble keeping the reiner walking because he is that responsive to his seat. He does adapt, but it is that the reiner is waiting for the signal to halt. And I can see why the dressage horse doesnāt necessarily want it quite like that 
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When I took my mare to cow penning she showed she was naturally cowy and happy to chase. But all her training has been English, with relatively slow prepared commands and a relationship to the bit that it is always there but only asking for gradual change and balancing.
Although she is super handy at liberty I could tell that she would be vastly offended at the abruptness in change of gait and direction needed for fast cow work. I could get that manoeuvrability out of the school master mare that does canter pirouette on a good day but my mare isnāt there yet. She trusts that what we do will be set up, and she can trust the bit to be present but gentle. She also didnāt get that now we stop chasing that cow and go find a new one to chase. Why stop when we just got that one moving nice?
I realize cow penning riding is much much cruder than vaquero bridle horses.
But I do think that dressage horses in good hands come to trust the bit and to know they will be set up and balanced and then allowed to move in ways that they actually enjoy.
If as in your case the horse is unusually resistant to contact either by training or experience or some confirmation or psychological quirk, he wonāt be a dressage horse and it will be hard to imagine how that might work. Like me and my first horse.
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Well, he was a dressage horse and did accept the contact (albeit light) - although I had others ride him who said āman, this horse has a light mouthā and that is very true. I would say though that it was a begrudging acceptance, and if you werenāt careful it was easy to get him to rear. Very easy. And thatās one of the reasons (as well as him rebelling when tapped with the whip) he was rejected. I cannot imagine that he would ever put the pound-4 pounds of pressure onto the rein that Clayton describes. He was perhaps ounces at best.
He is a spicy perpetual motion machine. When I got him his anxiety was so high he would tap dance in the cross ties. We had to go the whole way back to the beginning. So we did.
We went the other way and retrained him with signal, and now heās decided he rather prefers that. I can go into his past, but essentially, he wants a lot of agency and appreciates that I give it to him. He still lifts his back, heās still lovely and responsive, he just prefers to be asked slightly differently.
But youāre right, him in particular - heās unusual. If he spooks in the halter, for instance, he will never ever pull into the pressure. He is also very naturally claustrophobic and it took a long time to get him to accept holding his feet up for a long time for the farrier. He still, while youāre shoeing, does better if the lead is slack. Snug up on it at all and he becomes upset.
He will tie, but again, he needs room. And everything is so much better when itās his idea.
Iāve taught many other horses, and they were far far easier (although I do have to say I remember one draft cross who decided to just pick me up with his head and haul me down the aisle - not a darn thing I could do about it dangling there like a pendulum).
Cow penning is much cruder BUT the expectation of quick response is exactly it. A slow response to a mean bull could mean death. And those Spanish bulls are mean suckers. The American bull is a much more docile creature.
I had the privilege of watching Cutter Bill put on a demonstration at his home barn. Guy rode him into the arena, took off his bridle, and let him work. Iāll never forget it.
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Nice!
This is a really well ridden example of Doma Vaquera, which is the origins of the bridle horse.
The constant poke poke poke of the spurs and the bit give me the heebie jeebies.
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If it was a poke poke poke, Iād agree with you. It is interesting how oneās perception is biased.
Maybe take a closer look on a bigger screen. There is barely a step, let alone a full stride where that horse isnāt getting poked with a spur and a āāsignalāā from the bit.
The horse is going nicely for sure, but for me, Iād like to see less from the rider.
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That is probably fair, I am on a mobile device at the moment. Typically you wouldnāt see that.
I see a lot of spur and a lot of yanking on the horseās mouth. I am unclear how this is ānicerā to the horse than dressage. I thought āsignalā riding wasnāt supposed to do this?
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You see yanking because you interpret closing the distance as harsh. If the horse were bothered, he would greatly object.
You also see spurring because the movement is bigger. Keep in mind, they use a different kind of stirrup that requires a much larger twist of the ankle to use a precise pressure.
Itās the difference between constant pressure and not constant pressure.
However - Iāll admit, this on a larger screen is not as smooth as a mobile device.
So itās OK to jab the snot out of a horse because itās not constant. This does not lead me to conclude that signal riding is superior to dressage.
Disagree that the horse would object. Mayne he used to but then he got punished enough times he gave up
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Thank you.
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Doing a google image search of this and Iām finding nothing but horses on heavy curb contactā¦
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Didnāt say that it was superior. Never did.
However, I will say that most horses prefer a temporary touch to a long pressure.
But you do you. The snark isnāt warranted.
