Multiple Trainers Conflicting Advice

[Live_Wire]

The best piece of advice I ever received was that you ride with BOTH reins.

I tend to be very mechanical, so if you tell me to hold my outside rein, I will. That’s not correct. The outside rein is your support system. Your horse must learn to maintain a steady contact on the outside rein, yes, but that doesn’t mean you have a death grip on it’s mouth. For me, I like to maintain my contact with my ring finger, then I can close my middle finger and index finger to increase contact.

I will echo that OTTB’s aren’t traditional. They’ve already been trained, now you have to teach them something entirely different. They are taught to pull against the contact. For my own Thoroughbred, I had to give the outside rein intially to teach him contact was there to help him, not rush him.

i would ask for clarification. There is nothing wrong with saying, hey I’m confused - it was my understanding that i was supposed to do “this” why are you asking me to do “that.” What will “that” accomplish. If it turns into an entire lesson, who cares… it will help you understand.

Unpopular opinion, I lean more towards the new BO. I have a hard time believing a 4 y/o OTTB would have the capacity to turn on the outside rein until you teach it how to carry contact on the outside rein. Should you ride like that always? No way. It may be appropriate for this stage of the game.

Don’t be afraid to marry the two ideas together either. Riding is feel. Trying to communicate feel universally is very difficult and teaching styles can be very different. It’s our responsibility to navigate the gray area and figure out what works well for our horse individually. New BO might be asking you to throw the contact away in an effort to encourage your horse to fill the outside rein (think of it like steering a bicycle or visualize train tracks). I don’t know… but I would ask!

[strangewings]

@sascha

And in defense of teachers, it is not always easy to communicate these things when they don’t understand that the rider doesn’t even know what a forest is.

I have always thought that dressage must be the most difficult thing in the world to teach and i fully respect those who do it earnestly. After many years and many teachers, imo what differentiates the best dressage instructors is clarity in which single detail they prioritize over all else in the moment. And that detail can change moment to moment. And hey the rider learns from this that asking for one thing at a time is good for the horse’s learning too!

[Alterration]

@Giddyin

The old boarding barn was purposefully not feeding my 2 horses to save money and lying about it. Over the past 5 months they’ve lost over 12 boarders for the same problems. Several other unsafe things, my priority was getting my horses in a safe environment where they were getting fed.

Was the higher level trainer aware of this? Was she at this barn? I’m confused Did you have the same horse at the higher level trainer’s barn as the new barn?

@Live_Wire

Unpopular opinion, I lean more towards the new BO. I have a hard time believing a 4 y/o OTTB would have the capacity to turn on the outside rein until you teach it how to carry contact on the outside rein. Should you ride like that always? No way. It may be appropriate for this stage of the game.

I also am questioning whether this horse would understand the outside rein at all just yet. If he was raced at 2-3, left to let-down between 3-4, he’s pretty green from anything but a racing standpoint.

It is super hard to communicate that as you’re learning and the horse is learning you do different things, no matter the discipline. It’s also super hard to understand that something you learned at one stage of learning is very different than another stage of learning. And then differences in philosophies and methods are all over the place!

Ask questions For sure. But for your horse’s sake, I would be more consistent with one or the other trainer until he is a bit further along. A green horse can become confused very quickly with two different training methods, as they don’t have the ability to rationalize.

[SuzieQNutter]

@strangewings

“your seat is good, i don’t understand why you hold the reins so much” -

The hands should work as a pair and at the same time they should also be able to work independently.

By holding too much it may mean that the horse is hitting the bit. When you ask a horse forward they must never hit the bit. This is a skill. To be able to ask a horse forward without throwing away the reins and also without the horse hitting the bit. This is where the horse needs the confidence to go forward. They need the confidence in the riders hands that they will not hit the bit.

Also the art of using the reins is to learn how not to use the reins, as in downward transitions are not done with the reins, yet without throwing the reins away.