I’m sure your horse would get cranky if you take and take and take. He also seems like he has learned how to prevent anyone from having correct contact because he has been taught bad habits.
You take the contact and then you keep it. Constantly throwing it away or pulling is wrong.
If you want to ride your horse without contact that’s fine, but it isn’t what we call dressage. Ride how you want.
Not at all. My horse is very well trained.
He isn’t intended to be a dressage horse. He has been trained on signal, and this makes him quite light and balanced without constant contact. If I were to ride him on constant contact he’d be upset because he already gave me the right answer and I’d be nagging him. He is a signal horse. He is equally upset with people who continue to give him a leg aid after he has already given what you asked for. He is a very sensitive soul.
But again, the point is not to discuss him per se, it was to discuss the difference in philosophy. I understand that you believe it is wrong to not have a constant contact, but why? What is the theory behind it? I have heard the analogies but they all seem quite esoteric. No one has (at least as of yet) given me an explanation that makes any sense as to why this constant contact is desirable.
I’m a subscriber to dressage today, I’ve ridden with some BNTs, I’ve cliniced with some well known folks, and yet no one has explained this.
How can one do better dressage if no one can explain it?
This was what I encountered in saddleseat as well. The “we can’t explain it you have to just do it” explanation, but that makes it very difficult to teach, if you can’t explain it to anyone.
I should be more clear -
I’ve ridden with some very good dressage trainers at least by cv. I’ve clinic’ed with Gerding and others, read the classical literature. I’ve ridden some very well trained dressage horses (one who was in the top 4 as a young horse in his breed). In fact, my current horse was actually started in dressage.
According to the clinicians and trainers, I have done correct dressage by lightly sponging the bit (after riding forward) and the horse has sought the hand (put his head down and stretched into contact - I believe you call it descente de main).
But I am speaking theoretically in that I’m not sure what is in it for the horse with the constant fiddling with the sensitive structures of the mouth. I’m not sure that it’s necessary to do so to place a horse in a good body posture, and gymnasticize it well. And so I am asking the well educated folks at COTH to have a discussion whereby they help to explain the missing pieces for me. I’m definitely not criticizing it, although my ham-handed attempts to explain it likely sound that way.
To understand the perspective - understand that we don’t even lead horses by the bit, the mouth is considered so sacred. You use what is called a get down rope around the neck. When I learned about this it instantly changed my perspective about the mouth.
I wasn’t always western. That was just some of my early training and I have returned in the last few years to western tack.
Hi Mondo,
Here is the best I can draw two things that are so dangerous but hard to envision. Horse going though gate, and the gate closes towards the horse, if it’s not completely open in this fashion it can catch the stifle of the horse and when it bolts forward…disaster.
Just because I see it so much and people think I’m a bitch when I tell them DON’T freaking do it! The second sketch shows, if you drape the leadshank over your shoulder, you are asking to be decapitated as the horse can spook, run around you and the rope goes right around your neck. It happens, and it isn’t very often, but devastating.
Oh my goodness - I heard about someone who broke their neck that way. Every once in awhile I feel the urge to do it and stop myself.
I appreciate the drawings, but it’s really a simple concept. If you open the gate toward you, it can catch on the horse’s hip and close. The horse feels trapped and surges forward, closing the gate even more. Badness will happen.
Whenever possible, open the gate away from you. Much harder to get into trouble that way.
It is a simple concept! However every gate doesn’t swing both ways for various reasons so people do need to understand and Mondo didn’t seem to get Suzie’s explanation in words.
True. Some stall doors, for example. I always want to be on the side with the door/gate, so I can keep one hand on it and push/keep it open. Even if it means leading the horse from the off side.
No. When your connection is through, the feeling in your hands lightens considerably.
Lightens to zilch?
I have experienced this by the way, but there was always some weight there. Just ounces as opposed to more than ounces.
No, sorry. You are using “unrelenting.” That sounds harsh and it never should be. You absolutely can and should give at times. Especially after a half-halt. But you do not drop the contact when you give.
You guys really do not understand connection. You are all focused on what’s happening with the contact and entirely missing what’s happening with the rest of the horse’s body. Don’t even get me started on “rollkur” (hyperflexion). The two - contact and hyperflexion - are absolutely NOT the same thing and one does NOT lead to the other. There is a reason that hackamores are not legal in competition. There is a reason that we have both a snaffle and a curb (signal bit) on a double bridle.Specifically so you can maintain contact.
OK. And this is a problem, why?
I didn’t say it was a problem, per se. Trying to understand it because it’s SO different than everything else we do with a horse.
What communicates to the horse “hey you did the right thing there”?
Everything we know about training horses is that the response to correct behavior needs to be immediate. We touch the side of the horse with our leg, we expect an immediate response, we don’t keep digging at the horse - they would soon tune us out. When a horse commits an infraction like biting we know we have a limited amount of time to express clearly to the horse that this is unacceptable.
We teach this to pony club kids and it is the foundation of most training philosophy.
With contact, for some reason, that whole philosophy goes right out the window. We say “accept this heavy contact until at some point you come ‘through’” and the horse is just supposed to understand that somehow.
That’s the part that I’m having trouble reconciling. I’m not saying I’m bothered by it - so much as I don’t understand it.
No, no, no. Sorry. It’s NOT heavy contact. If it is, you’re doing it wrong. LOL. What the horse understands is the sudden improvement in his balance. Everything gets lighter. No hard leg, hard rein aids, nothing. Just beautiful balance, which rider then maintains with light and well-timed half halts.
I might also point out that if the horse feeling the connection and how it is aiding him isn’t enough of a “response to correct behavior,” then no dressage horses would get past training level. They absolutely do learn that feeling light and balanced is a reward. I don’t ever have a problem reaching up (with inside hand) to give the horse a pat when he gets it right. But the connection from inside leg to outside rein is maintained.
To suggest that the “whole philosophy goes right out the window” in dressage is erroneous. (I was going to write silly, but I’m happy to discuss, no intent to insult you.)
If you were unable to see, and relying on someone to guide you round obstacles, would you rather have someone lightly holding your hand/elbow consistently and then slightly changing the pressure to make a request (or think of ballroom dancing and being the led as opposed to the lead dancer) or would you rather get poked out of the blue, no matter how quietly/lightly?
For me that is what contact is about. It’s not about allowing the horse to hang, it’s about allowing a conversation where the direction comes from the rider as unobtrusively as possible, but that conversation flows both ways.
To be clear though, the “unwavering” contact does not mean firm, fixed, or unfeeling.
YES! Thank you sascha! You said it so much better than I have.
But that isn’t accomplished at first, correct?
With a young horse it has been described as quite heavy - they don’t have initial balance. They are on their forehands quite naturally. They need strength to find that place.
I’ve used this analogy before, and I like it, but when a horse is riding on signal the rein is the last aid to be applied, and if it requires the hand, they’ve often missed the other body aids.
It occurs to me real difference, as we’re discussing it, is that in dressage, the hand helps to establish balance, and in the signal tradition (for lack of a better term) we seek to have the horse balance himself (though the use of exercises).
I’m seeking clarity here, not to be difficult, but to be able to map things. 
It’s ok - when I wrote it, I said it slightly tongue in cheek. I’m trying to understand and separate the two concepts so that I fully have them in depth, not be difficult or ornery!
I’ve never been a person that could just accept things at face value - I’ve got to have a very deep understanding of them intellectually before I can integrate them. Perpetual failing, I suppose 
I like the “holding hands” analogy.
If you are holding hands with a child and things are going fine, you have a light, comfortable contact. Sometimes you (the adult) will give a little squeeze or even a small tug to redirect a child trying to run off, or about to step on something. Otherwise you may give a tiny squeeze now and then just for reassurance.
If you are walking together but not holding hands, things may be fine for a while as the child knows to walk with you. But if the child gets frightened, excited, or distracted, you may need to take a hand. That contact is generally more abrupt and disruptive than if you already were holding the hand.
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