More hackamore questions

[Pocket_Pony]

Mac needs some work done on his teeth and while I’m waiting for the dentist to come out, I put him in his bitless bridle. I usually just trail ride in it but I schooled him in the arena with it the other day and he was fabulous. I had put off my hackamore search, but now I think I’m going to go for it.

I called Bill Black, who was very nice and helpful but I still have some questions and didn’t want to sound like an idiot on the phone with him so I thought I’d get some help here.

What are “nerve buttons” - why would you or would you not want them? And the different types of cores - hard, medium, soft - he thought I’d want a 5/8" medium core, but I’m curious about the others and the whys and whatfors of them? Same with the thickness of the nose button - thick in the middle and then tapering at the sides, or the same thickness all around? What about number of plaits - how/why is that relevant or important? Also, what about rawhide vs. latigo vs. roo? Why one over the other?

I think I’ve found a hackamore clinic near me in the spring so I could get some formal help with getting started in it.

Thanks!

[aktill]

Never had the chance to speak to Mr Black, but I have two of his hackamores, so I can attest that he does good work.

Nerve buttons are little buttons braided onto the sides of the nose, which increase the pressure of a cue applied there and increase lateral control. They date back from when people thought a nerve ran there, though nothing of significance does. If your horse tends to need a lot of lateral signal, they’d be an option (none of mine have them).

The counterpoint to this is a swelled nose…more pressure in the middle from less contact increase longitudinal signal. If you have trouble bridling up your horse, or want more signal in that direction, this is an option. My 5/8 has a slight swell.

Cores - hard isn’t as forgiving, but is more exact…less bounce, more relationship between what your hand does and what the bosal does. Soft is more likely to bounce, but can give a softer cue. Med is probably the best compromise until you know what you want.

Plaits from Bill will be a matter of style. More looks finer, fancier, but won’t last as long since the strings are smaller. In GENERAL finer is softer, but Bill would do a smooth job even on coarser braids. Finer is more expensive, since it’s more time consuming.

Latigo cheeks are nice on heavy hacks if your horse is a good, sensitive soul. Less likely to scar them up if you have to get after them a few times once in a while. Rawhide is a sharper signal if your horse needs a bit more convincing. I think roo is like latigo, though more expensive because it’s more durable.

[Pocket_Pony]

[QUOTE=aktill;7382617]

Nerve buttons are little buttons braided onto the sides of the nose, which increase the pressure of a cue applied there and increase lateral control. They date back from when people thought a nerve ran there, though nothing of significance does. If your horse tends to need a lot of lateral signal, they’d be an option (none of mine have them).

The counterpoint to this is a swelled nose…more pressure in the middle from less contact increase longitudinal signal. If you have trouble bridling up your horse, or want more signal in that direction, this is an option. My 5/8 has a slight swell.

Latigo cheeks are nice on heavy hacks if your horse is a good, sensitive soul. Less likely to scar them up if you have to get after them a few times once in a while. Rawhide is a sharper signal if your horse needs a bit more convincing. I think roo is like latigo, though more expensive because it’s more durable.[/QUOTE]

Mac is good when he’s good, but when he’s not good, he can be bad . . . if that makes any sense! :winkgrin: I’ve not once had a problem with him in the bitless bridle and in fact he seems to be calmer in it for some reason. How would I know if he needs more help laterally or longitudinally? In the bit, he does get a brace and especially from one side of his mouth (hence the dental appointment and working in the bitless until then); when he braces, he’s very strong in the neck and it takes a little more effort than I’d like to get him to bend laterally. But again, that’s with the bit. With the bitless, I don’t have as much of a problem with it, but I would say that’s his default resistance. He is the type of horse who will argue but then back down. Which is to say, he doesn’t make anything easy for me, but once he decides to play along then things are great. He doesn’t give anything away out of the kindness of his heart.

[Wirt]

[QUOTE=Pocket Pony;7382667]
Mac is good when he’s good, but when he’s not good, he can be bad . . . if that makes any sense! :winkgrin: I’ve not once had a problem with him in the bitless bridle and in fact he seems to be calmer in it for some reason. How would I know if he needs more help laterally or longitudinally? In the bit, he does get a brace and especially from one side of his mouth (hence the dental appointment and working in the bitless until then); when he braces, he’s very strong in the neck and it takes a little more effort than I’d like to get him to bend laterally. But again, that’s with the bit. With the bitless, I don’t have as much of a problem with it, but I would say that’s his default resistance. He is the type of horse who will argue but then back down. Which is to say, he doesn’t make anything easy for me, but once he decides to play along then things are great. He doesn’t give anything away out of the kindness of his heart. ;)[/QUOTE]

The hackamore and the bitless bridle have next to nothing in common. The purpose and function are totally different. A hackamore is not meant to be used as a sidepull, or to the side much at all. It is about signal, rather than pull, or leading the horses nose. It is about balance, and the rocking motion of the hackamore from the nose to the jaw. Ironically, the ultimate goal of a bosal is so you can get your horse into a bit such as a spade. It is about creating a bridle horse. It is not about just riding without a bit.

[aktill]

[QUOTE=Pocket Pony;7382667]
How would I know if he needs more help laterally or longitudinally?[/QUOTE]

Without riding in a few, you really wouldn’t. I’d go with a slight swell and no nerve buttons, personally.

[aktill]

[QUOTE=Wirt;7382687]
A hackamore is not meant to be used as a sidepull, or to the side much at all.[/QUOTE]

While I agree with the first part, I’d qualify the second a little. A bosal is capable of asking for just as much lateral flexion as sidepull, it just asks that it be done from a centered hand position (as a bridle does) to avoid tipping the poll the wrong way.

A sidepull is a nice alternative to a snaffle to teach lateral flexion before going into a hackamore, should folks prefer to do this. Stays out of a young horse’s mouth.

[Fillabeana]

OK, first with the bosal search, I’ll share how my own has gone:
I saw some GOOD tack/equipment on craigslist one day, that’s how I got my good chinks. A fellow was moving to Europe for a year or two, and had some stuff for sale. The chinks were completely plain but made of top materials, for his wife who was the same size as I am. Materials and labor to make them, even completely plain/without decoration, was close to $300 but I bought them for $100.

Fellow had some boots my husband tried, not quite right.

And also, a bosal with a lovely mane-hair mecate tied onto it.
Fellow stated the bosal was not great, mostly just good for hanging on the wall. Not crap (which IS readily available), but not in his opinion a good piece.
I bought it, with mecate, for $100.

So I rode two of my horses in it, mostly just piddling around. The appendix mare did just fine with it, the TB not. I ended up skinning his jaw pretty fast.
A huge part of skinnng his jaw was that I was not able to use the bosal as a SIGNAL, rather than a tool of pressure and release. (I’ll get back to that later.)
But the other part of it was that the TB’s skin was too thin and the bosal was not finely, smoothly made.

So, what I knew at that point about getting TB into a bosal was
1)MUST be on a feel 99% of the time
and
2)Must get bosal with smooth cheeks that won’t skin his jaw.

So, stopping by a booth one day (that belonged to Greg Gomersall), I looked through his californio-tradition wares- lots of great stuff. I found a beautiful bosal, it had a little ‘mousing’ on the nose (swell) and very smooth sides. It was a 1/2" diameter, so a little small to start with. I didn’t like the larger diameter bosals- I either thought they were an ugly color (looked like calf scours to me) or purposely made to not be smooth-cheeked.

So I bought the 1/2" bosal, and toodled around with the TB in it-outside, checking cows, where there wouldn’t be any exact work needed. Horse went really well in it, though there were some spots that we didn’t have much for control!

From that ride, I knew I needed the horse on more of a feel, but that the bosal itself agreed with him.

Next summer, I asked Buck if I should use this half-inch bosal to start in, since it fit the horse and he liked it.
Answer was no, not unless you are Ray Hunt. (Who, by the way, wanted a bosal just as soft as possible.) That I would need a larger diameter, and that I would need my horse just absolutely soft and responsive and completely unbraced in the halter, also, before we got into the bosal.
Keep in mind that this was a previously spoiled and troubled racehorse, who had been trained to lean on the bit to gallop. And me in particular, who from past ‘dressage’ training, used to think that I need to have the horse braced and leaning into a ‘consistent contact’ to be ‘on the bit’ in order to collect and use himself properly.

So, I saved up more Christmas $$ and had Greg Gomersall ask the maker of my 1/2" bosal (a retired heart surgeon from Boise, ID named Kirby Orme) make me a 3/4" diameter bosal.

The TB likes it, and goes well in it, but I can’t yet get him carrying himself collected/bridled up, in a soft feel. I can just barely get him carrying himself that way in the snaffle, so we’ll get that going well before we change over to the bosal.

[Fillabeana]

OK, so on to the bosal, bitless bridle, sudepull issue.
Because you have one of those crossunder, leverage-with-rings, ‘indian’ bitless bridles, right?
Those are really Frowned Upon by folks such as Dr. Deb Bennett and Buck and such. They give a pull in the wrong side of the horse’s head, and with the leverage applied from the crossed-up rings, they don’t release at the right time (which is the really Frowned Upon part of the design.)

So the folks who Frown Upon a crossunder-type bitless bridle, often very much recommend a sidepull, whose signal is more clear to the horse and does not confuse the release with a leveraged tightening around the muzzle.

So, my suggestion for now if you are riding sans bit because of teeth problems, that you go get a regular sidepull.

BUT, but but but but

you have posted before this as well that Mac goes really nicely in your Frowned Upon Bitless Bridle.

If Mac is following your lateral requests, he understands your opening rein (and indirect rein) cues and the thing Never tightens around his muzzle…
than there is no reason to get excited about all the Frowning, because the HORSE is telling you that he understands clearly what you are asking.

So, of course you have heard, in a similar vein, that when your horse is wearing his snaffle outfit with mecate rein, that you ONLY do groundwork with the horse going counterclockwise, because if he is going clockwise and you pull on the mecate you will pull on the bit on the wrong side of his mouth and confuse him.

Yeah, no, you haven’t heard that.

If the horse gets confused in groundwork on the snaffle mecate rein with the bit pulling in the ‘wrong’ place, because you HAVE to put a physical pull on it, you go back to the halter. You go back to the halter to make things more clear to the horse.
Once the horse can follow your feel in the groundwork, once he learns on the halter, you put the snaffle outfit back on and you can send him either direction on the mecate rein without confusing him. You can get off and send him through a gate using your mecate rein, turning him whichever direction he needs to go for that particular gate, you won’t pull the bit on the wrong side of his mouth and confuse him, because he can follow your feel.

Yes, the bosal is MUCH more a longitudinal tool than a lateral one.

But if the horse understands clearly what the lateral hand is asking, it works just fine in a bosal. The key is that you do not PULL on a bosal. The bosal is a tool of signal. The bit (and sidepull) are tools that are expected to have lateral PULL on them, until the horse learns to follow the feel.

So if you PULL laterally on a bosal, you will make a mess.

If you use the bosal with a lateral SIGNAL, it works just fine.

There is a beautiful photo of Martin Black, in his Cow Horse Confidence book, of Martin using a direct rein while circling a cow, showing a horse called White Eye in Elko in 1983. There’s a big loop in the rein- Martin is not in any way PULLING sideways.

Another photo at near the end of this video, cutting/boxing a cow in a hackamore horse, at 3:39
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYrRz58Ve_c

In his Working Cattle in the A Pen, Martin also uses that lateral rein on his hackamore horse to set up his horse to turn the cow. He’s basically just getting his horse into a leg yield, so the horse can turn the cow and move off balanced, in the correct lead.
He also does that with his snaffle bit horses, but his bridle horses don’t need it, they know how to make that turn without Martin setting them up to help them.

[katarine]

BRAVO. Well written, on the nose.

[aktill]

Not the greatest video to use to talk about not pulling on a bosal, given at 2:47 Martin talks about the horse getting prepared to “avoid the hard pull”.

Though a hackamore is a tool in the signal category, that doesn’t mean you never put any pressure behind a request. You still do what you need to do, so that you can do less later. I’m not sure if you’re just trying to rationalize the opening rein as never having any pressure behind it when used as such? The other option is just not to use it, though to each their own on that mark.

It’s akin to a dressage rider who confuses light contact with empty contact. Less pressure in and of itself isn’t always a good thing. Its a good goal, but make sure it isn’t an attempt to mimic the master’s horse without the foundation there. Whispering can be unclear if you’re trying to explain something.

[Pocket_Pony]

@Fillabeana;7383295

The key is that you do not PULL on a bosal. The bosal is a tool of signal. The bit (and sidepull) are tools that are expected to have lateral PULL on them, until the horse learns to follow the feel.

So if you PULL laterally on a bosal, you will make a mess.

If you use the bosal with a lateral SIGNAL, it works just fine.

Yes, Mac goes quite well in the BB and I just got back from a lovely ride where we were working on lateral work with haunches in and out and lateral flexions in the BB. He did beautifully and we were able to do that work at the W, T, C, and counter canter. I’m able to ride lightly with the BB and he definitely understands my aids.

Could you explain what you mean by pulling vs. signalling? I think I understand what you mean when you say pulling . . . pulling and (is this what you mean?) holding until the horse gives the right answer? But what do you mean by signalling? Is that the bump bump bump that I see people use with a hackamore? The word “signal” doesn’t really mean anything to me, so if you could define it that would be helpful.

[aktill]

You don’t ever hold pressure on a horse’s nose with a bosal unless you want to encourage him to eventually run through it. One of the worst habits you can have in a hackamore is to never let the heel knot drop.

You bump and release, repeating until you get the desired response. If you’re in the realm of hold until he releases, you should be in a sidepull or snaffle.

[Pocket_Pony]

Thanks, aktill, that’s what I thought, I just want to understand the word “signal” correctly.

[re-runs]

Aktill, don`t get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for your knowledge and willingness to share it.

" You still do what you need to do, so that you can do less later. "

I think the “later” that you are talking about should be when a horse graduates to a hackamore.

By the time a horse is going in a hackamore he is following a feel enough so that you don`t have to pull.

Example, when we are first riding in a snaffle, we want what we have established in our groundwork of a horse following our feel to transfer to the saddle. We start out by using a wide leading rein that the horse can easily follow, then gradually, the horse feels confident enough to follow our focus, our body balance and relies less and less on our hand until, our hands can stay in a fairly narrow range of motion and not wide apart like he needed in the beginning. Reminder, that when we ask the horse to follow our leading hand, our other hand is passively coming in against the horses neck so that he naturally is going to associate the touch of that outside rein with turning…the horse we are riding in a snaffle at this moment, we are preparing for the day when we can ride one handed in the hackamore tomorrow (without training on him).

In My World, when we graduate our horse to a hackamore, he is already following our feel so we can rely very little on hands because the horse is hooked on to our whole body and mind… a feel following a feel. A hackamore is designed to be ridden one handed, foundation of riding with feel already established. It is not designed to be ridden AT ALL like a snaffle; where each side of the horse is worked separately, hense the design of the snaffle being jointed in the center; right/left.

[aktill]

Hi Re-runs - we’re saying basically the same thing, with the exception that I’ve learned to avoid the wide, leading, opening rein at all costs.

What I meant by: " You still do what you need to do, so that you can do less later. " …is that you do what you need to do to get a response. That doesn’t mean yank his head off, it can mean keep bumping at the same pressure.

That said, I will up the pressure if I need to keep the both of us safe, or to get a job done. I then apologize for overfacing the situation, and move on. I just didn’t want to leave the impression that everything is always quiet and very soft, and if you have to use more than a tiny bit of pressure you have to go back to the lateral tool (sidepull or snaffle).

There’s a reason for big, heavy hackamores after all. There are lots of folks who don’t believe you have to “graduate” to a hackamore beyond teaching the basics of lateral control in even a halter.

[Fillabeana]

Not the greatest video to use to talk about not pulling on a bosal

OK. Well…
What I see, is Martin showing how to put pressure on the horse, how to have the horse run into his own pressure, without taking hold of a rein and pulling…which Martin explains, you do not want to do with a bosal because the horse will rapidly learn how to run right through it.

In other words, I think Martin, in that video, is showing how you can use pressure and release with a bosal should things get out of hand, because what you can’t do is just put a steady pull on the reins.

I personally find it silly that lots of people say, don’t ever use an opening rein on a bosal, because it will tip the horse’s nose sideways.
I can post forty twelve links of people’s horses in snaffle bits, their horses’ polls askew, nose tipped way off plumb.
(Refer, if you like, to mvp’s observation of the Unwashed Masses ‘learning flexions’ at a Buck clinic.)
They think they’re asking for lateral flexion at the poll, for the brace to release. They are instead asking for (by communicating via releasing when their horse twists his neck and his nose around sideways) a different neck joint to twist the horse’s nose off plumb, thinking that is the what they are supposed to be looking for.

Plenty of people don’t also know that in using that opening rein, they should be asking for the horse to shift his balance to his outside feet, to step across behind, to weight the outside hind and release the brace in the loin, to release and bend the ribcage in the direction of travel, and follow a feel (again releasing any brace in the poll) with his nose in the direction of travel. They think they are just asking the horse to bend his neck and follow his nose.

Some people ‘ask’ with an opening rein for a turn, and what they get is a leaning, motorcycle turn, blaming the horse for ‘dropping his shoulder’ because they (or the horse) don’t have any idea how a horse’s body makes a balanced turn.
I almost NEVER used an opening rein in my past life, on my event horses, especially jumping more than 3’…because if I did, the horse would drop its shoulder and we would not get balanced enough to jump comfortably. I instead ALWAYS used an indirect rein, because that kept my horse from leaning over into the turn.
If I had known how to address the horse’s body, her braces and her balance, I could have used that opening rein to get the horse really weighting her outside hind leg. And flying changes would have been something that didn’t just sort of show up sometimes because the horse was filling in for me.

The same thing, with the opening rein, shows up in spades with groundwork and longeing. People want the horse to circle around them in a nice bend, and they pull the horse’s nose to the center of the circle, and the horse weights its inside legs and pushes its shoulder toward the handler. (That shoulder ‘pushing’ on the handler is an unfortunately inadvertent but clear sign to the horse that the Horse is moving the Handler’s feet, further compounding the problem with muddy leadership.)

The groundwork circle doesn’t get right until the handler can use the lead/mecate like an opening rein, to get the horse unbraced, stepping across behind, and weighting the outside legs to keep his shoulder out of the handler’s space.

The danger, to me, in using ANY equipment is not knowing what you are addressing, what the response from the horse is that you are looking for.

[Fillabeana]

with the exception that I’ve learned to avoid the wide, leading, opening rein at all costs.

Aktill, I wrote my above reply before I read this response.
Without trying to get your back up, I think that avoiding a wide, leading opening rein at all costs, is going to cost you something.
You may not NEED it on Tindur right now, but I think you could be missing what SHOULD happen when you use a wide, leading opening rein on any horse.

[Fillabeana]

Pocket, Aktill clarified your question nicely.

I want to add, though, that the ‘bump, bump, bump’ isn’t really what I’d think of as ‘signal’. In a bosal, moving your arm over, or taking the slack out of the reins, should be the signal.
The ‘bump, bump, bump’ is more of how to ‘hold pressure until he releases’ in a bosal, without pulling on the bosal.
Once the horse has learned what you are asking for via the bumping, you can signal your request, and not have to bump him at all because he’s following your feel.

[aktill]

[QUOTE=Fillabeana;7383712]
Aktill, I wrote my above reply before I read this response.
Without trying to get your back up, I think that avoiding a wide, leading opening rein at all costs, is going to cost you something.
You may not NEED it on Tindur right now, but I think you could be missing what SHOULD happen when you use a wide, leading opening rein on any horse.[/QUOTE]

I’ve talked to enough folks that I respect that I don’t think it’ll be the case, but I’ll adjust to fit the situation should the need arise

I should make that my signature - my firm opinions today are not guaranteed to be my firm opinions tomorrow lol

[aktill]

On the opening rein discussion, I’ll write a bit more later, but I did want to say that a lack of general understanding of the correct use of gear shouldn’t determine how the ideal case is phrased.

Likewise, what people should do at any given point should be filtered through their understanding of how the gear works. I can’t rationalize the mechanics of an opening rein in a bosal, let alone without a post hand, so I don’t use it. If you believe that it can be used correctly, then by all means do so.

It’s why I don’t argue much with folks who two-hand shanked bits etc. Their understanding reflects their usage, and so be it.