Do you really wonder how this thread got off topic? :eek:
just answering a post, as you did not comment on the Op’s question, nor my original answer, so off we go into la la land!
I’m not going to join the bit debate, as that seems to have gotten out of hand.
My trainers would agree with me on this horse, in that he has no basics.
I take advanced lessons with a reining trainer. We work on flying lead changes, spins, arcs/counterarcs, etc to make a horse more fine tuned, and cues invisible.
I also take lessons with a English trainer who is a USDF Gold Medal winner. She is also a judge. While my focus is mainly hunter/jumper with her (she herself has done Grand Prix Dressage), we do tons of work on basic body control, collection, flexion, etc.
Long story short: I know how to ride a fine-tuned horse. But you can’t do any of that if the horse doesn’t even have basics. The horse in question has no basics.
Agree, basics are missing and the horse is not ;‘more finely tuned’
In answer to the question, I would say the horse needs to be taught.
I would use a snaffle bit and ask for contact as that is the only way I know. In rising trot the inside leg raises the poll, in sitting trot it is your core muscles in your tummy that keeps the poll up.
[QUOTE=beau159;7877973]
I’m not going to join the bit debate, as that seems to have gotten out of hand.
My trainers would agree with me on this horse, in that he has no basics.
I take advanced lessons with a reining trainer. We work on flying lead changes, spins, arcs/counterarcs, etc to make a horse more fine tuned, and cues invisible.
I also take lessons with a English trainer who is a USDF Gold Medal winner. She is also a judge. While my focus is mainly hunter/jumper with her (she herself has done Grand Prix Dressage), we do tons of work on basic body control, collection, flexion, etc.
Long story short: I know how to ride a fine-tuned horse. But you can’t do any of that if the horse doesn’t even have basics. The horse in question has no basics.[/QUOTE]
I’m sure you are a very nice rider with plenty of experience, but horses trained in different systems often require very different rides. For example, I spend at least six hours every day riding various horses, have for years, in addition to having competed in the rated hunter/jumper ring through my junior years and currently taking dressage lessons with a fairly accomplished trainer (all his medals, successful in our region) as regularly as possible, but I guarantee you if I was to get on a trained Grand Prix dressage horse, I would not be able to get him from one end of the arena to the other on my own. It would feel to me like the horse was unresponsive and “poorly trained”, because he would be too finely tuned for me. I would not know the proper cues to ride that horse.
The horse you are describing does not sound like he has been half-assed. The way you describe him he sounds like a confused horse, not a half broke horse. A horse lacking in the basics would ride more like a “baby” that had just been backed; none of the things you describe sound like baby things, they sound like trained things. It’s your choice how you go about this horse, I merely suggested what I’d try. I realize it’s a lot different when you are the one on the horse.
Personally I’m with you, I don’t particularly care for the things he has been taught or the way we can assume he was taught them.
Personally I’m with you, I don’t particularly care for the things he has been taught or the way we can assume he was taught them.
No good horse person would, like the above, and why the horse sounds poorly trained, protecting himself by getting behind the vertical, because somewhere along the line, some one worked on head position, incorrectly, and never bothered to get correct movement first and formost, The concept of getting correct movement, riding a horse back to front, more legs then hands is a concept that is pretty much universal to any good trainer, regardless of discipline
The OP states that the the horse does not know leg cues.
The following the nose bit, running off at the shoulder, could of course be if the OP was neck reining the horse, with that curb, and moving her hand way to the side of the turn (as often seen at auction marts ), which would actually cause the horse to tip his head in the opposite direction
I guess it would be helpful to have some experienced trainer ride this horse, even the one that put some time on him this past summer, as I do agree there could be a communication problem, not seeing how the oP is riding the horse
The way to fix a horse that tries to drop behind the vertical for bit evasion, remains to leave that head alone and really drive that horse up with legs when he tries to do so. This of course, is done in a snaffle
[QUOTE=Angelico;7879230]
I guarantee you if I was to get on a trained Grand Prix dressage horse, I would not be able to get him from one end of the arena to the other on my own. It would feel to me like the horse was unresponsive and “poorly trained”, because he would be too finely tuned for me. I would not know the proper cues to ride that horse. [/QUOTE]
This is not a Grand Prix dressage horse.
If he was a finished, grand champion show horse in some event, I would have expected his price tag to be in the 5 or 6 figures. He was only $3,500. That’s not the price of a “finely tuned” horse.
Not to mention he does have several bad habits (which will be easy to fix with time), one of which is that he walks off very quickly the instant you try to mount up. He’s been getting better as my mom has been working with him on that, but the habit is not completely fixed yet. To me, that’s just one of many signs for me to give distrust to the previous trainer. I would at least expect a good trainer to teach a horse to stand still during mounting; a very basic respect issue.
My 3-year-old “baby” colt rides nicer than this horse does, leg cues, neck reining, and all.
idk… agreeing with angelico et all here… sounds like you got on made your opinion and left no room for realizations. don’t think the bit you’re about to put him in is a good idea. why not a video, to put the dissenters to rest?
how would you know this isn’t a well trained horse? did he tell you? most horses are much more broke or trained than we believe or give them credit for :lol:
Most of us here already have agreed that this horse belongs back in a plain snaffle, and does not belong ina curb of any kind at the moment, as he has missing basics
A well broke horse, unless there is a serious pain issue, does not offer to buck, no matter time off, etc
If the horse was well broke, ready to be ridden correctly in a curb (off of the indirect rein, with the rein hand never moving more that an inch or so from the center of the mane, and mostly off of seat and leg, on a loose rein, then the mouth piece of that curb does not matter much
Don’t have that on a horse, and you are going to have a problem trying to ride that horse in any curb, as curbs are not designed for direct reining
The horse could be well broke, in the fact that he has always been ridden with two hands and a snaffle, as some people leave their western horses like that, without ever worrying about putting foundations on the horse that will have him ready to 'graduate to a curb, thus again, you evaluate the horse, before trying to ride him in a curb.
If he does not guide evenly between the reins, ridden one handed, while keeping body alignment correct in all maneuvers, he is not ready to be ridden in ANY curb
It is not difficult to assess this, or at least a good horseman could get on that horse and know within a minute as to whether this horse is educated enough to be ridden CORRECTLY in acurb
[QUOTE=beowulf;7881350]
don’t think the bit you’re about to put him in is a good idea. [/QUOTE]
I have no problem putting him back into a snaffle. Actually said I was going to. So that’s not really the issue.
I have no problem getting a video. Except I don’t make it down to my parents’ place very often (over 100 miles away) and it will have to depend on the weather in the middle of winter while I am there. So a video won’t be happening any time soon.
I haven’t been on this board very long but I am getting the feeling that you have to “prove” yourself around here to get any credit on knowing what you are doing.
[QUOTE=KIloBright;7881432]
Most of us here already have agreed that this horse belongs back in a plain snaffle, and does not belong ina curb of any kind at the moment, as he has missing basics
A well broke horse, unless there is a serious pain issue, does not offer to buck, no matter time off, etc
If the horse was well broke, ready to be ridden correctly in a curb (off of the indirect rein, with the rein hand never moving more that an inch or so from the center of the mane, and mostly off of seat and leg, on a loose rein, then the mouth piece of that curb does not matter much
Don’t have that on a horse, and you are going to have a problem trying to ride that horse in any curb, as curbs are not designed for direct reining
The horse could be well broke, in the fact that he has always been ridden with two hands and a snaffle, as some people leave their western horses like that, without ever worrying about putting foundations on the horse that will have him ready to 'graduate to a curb, thus again, you evaluate the horse, before trying to ride him in a curb.
If he does not guide evenly between the reins, ridden one handed, while keeping body alignment correct in all maneuvers, he is not ready to be ridden in ANY curb
It is not difficult to assess this, or at least a good horseman could get on that horse and know within a minute as to whether this horse is educated enough to be ridden CORRECTLY in acurb[/QUOTE]
I guess you don’t consider a Grand Prix jumper “well broke” then? Or a UL eventer? Or nearly any horse at the top of its discipline? Being well trained does not necessarily make a horse an easy ride.
[QUOTE=beau159;7887792]
I have no problem putting him back into a snaffle. Actually said I was going to. So that’s not really the issue.
I have no problem getting a video. Except I don’t make it down to my parents’ place very often (over 100 miles away) and it will have to depend on the weather in the middle of winter while I am there. So a video won’t be happening any time soon.
I haven’t been on this board very long but I am getting the feeling that you have to “prove” yourself around here to get any credit on knowing what you are doing.[/QUOTE]
well… it’s not really about proving yourself… it’s about proving you’re doing right by the horse. that’s all that matters, right?
Teach him or see if he already knows a verbal whoa. Keeps you out of his face. You can teach it on the lungeline too.
[QUOTE=beau159;7887792]
I haven’t been on this board very long but I am getting the feeling that you have to “prove” yourself around here to get any credit on knowing what you are doing.[/QUOTE]
My impression is that there are some people here who will always assume that you (generic you) don’t know what you’re doing, no matter what your credentials might be, so I wouldn’t worry too much about “proving” yourself. I think, overall, it’s a futile effort. :lol:
[QUOTE=beau159;7887792]
I haven’t been on this board very long but I am getting the feeling that you have to “prove” yourself around here to get any credit on knowing what you are doing.[/QUOTE]
I agree with NoSuchPerson’s take on it. I would add two things though. First is, if you have 5 ‘horse people’ you’ll get six different opinions, and second (related) is, when one asks a question, how one handles the answers one doesn’t like can be a tricky prospect.
We’re all learning new things, or ought to be. But. What we get on this board is free advice, we’re always getting our money’s worth, but I think it’s wise to take the advice of total strangers with a grain of salt- precisely because no one needs to, or even ‘can’ in a typed message, prove their expertise.
In fact I can think of more than one ‘expert’ over the years who turned out to be a total neophyte on the particular subject or riding discipline.
One of my favorite radio hosts, now retired, used to say “don’t believe anything you hear me say unless it’s consistent with what you already know to be true or you can verify it with another source.”
I’m always reading stuff on COTH that makes me think, “that can’t be right,” or “I have no idea what she’s talking about.” I’ve learned a lot by following up on those things with some research of my own.
[QUOTE=NoSuchPerson;7889754]
One of my favorite radio hosts, now retired, used to say “don’t believe anything you hear me say unless it’s consistent with what you already know to be true or you can verify it with another source.”
I’m always reading stuff on COTH that makes me think, “that can’t be right,” or “I have no idea what she’s talking about.” I’ve learned a lot by following up on those things with some research of my own.[/QUOTE]
Me too, google is your friend, so handy once I had a MAC.
When you, as the old saying goes, have forgotten more than most will ever know, you also realize that so much you still know has been new understanding to old knowledge, or older knowledge tweaked along and some completely discarded.
When new to some knowledge, at times we may take it as gospel, lacking perspective.
That is why it is better, when we post, to explain up front where we know what we do know from and that sets the limits of what we believe to be so.
Angelico:
I guess you don’t consider a Grand Prix jumper “well broke” then? Or a UL eventer? Or nearly any horse at the top of its discipline? Being well trained does not necessarily make a horse an easy ride.
Answer:
There is a huge difference of a very fit athlete, like a grand Prix jumper, throwing in a mild buck , after a big jump, and a horse bucking out of refusal, when a leg is put on him, asking for a lope
I’m not stupid , or inexperienced to not know that some very great upper level performance horses will never be great non pro or youth horses, as they are no easy rides.
At the same time, I do know what a good solid recreational horse rides like, even with time off, not on some 'rocket fuel diet, if that horse has some solid training and a decent mind. Started enough young horses over the years, and ridden enough of my own horses, to know that if I did the job right, when that horse is going well, I don’t expect that horse to buck, rear or drop behind the vertical, for that matter!
[QUOTE=NoSuchPerson;7889563]
My impression is that there are some people here who will always assume that you (generic you) don’t know what you’re doing, no matter what your credentials might be, so I wouldn’t worry too much about “proving” yourself. I think, overall, it’s a futile effort. :lol:[/QUOTE]
Oh, how true this is!!! Even if you say, “I did x, y, and z and am a pro in such-and-such discipline” you’ll still get people who tell you you don’t know what you’re talking about!:winkgrin:
Focus on doing right by the horse, experiment with some different techniques, and come to your own conclusions. Ultimately, the horse will tell you what is right. Best of luck.
