Snaffle bit horses brought along later in bosals look as such…like snaffle bit horses ridden in bosals. Doesn’t matter if it’s Buck Brannaman or Les Vogt, you can still see the carriage that a snaffle start creates.
Nothing particularly wrong with that, but it’s there to my eye anyway.
Fun shot of Les: http://vimeo.com/107210406
[QUOTE=aktill;7821847]
Snaffle bit horses brought along later in bosals look as such…like snaffle bit horses ridden in bosals. Doesn’t matter if it’s Buck Brannaman or Les Vogt, you can still see the carriage that a snaffle start creates.
Nothing particularly wrong with that, but it’s there to my eye anyway.
Fun shot of Les: http://vimeo.com/107210406[/QUOTE]
I would agree with that.
The “You can get more done in a snaffle” line,
Translate as, “Easier to pull your horse around a bunch”.
[QUOTE=Wirt;7821879]
I would agree with that.
The “You can get more done in a snaffle” line,
Translate as, “Easier to pull your horse around a bunch”.[/QUOTE]
Sorry, but that is not true.
Traditionally , working cowhorses are started in a snaffle, then moved to a bosal, then to a thin bosal and bit, and then finally up in a spade
Les Volgt, who I was able yo watch at the Mane Even, giving several clinics on Hackamore horsemanship, is regarded as THE leading expert on producing a bosal horse, and the softness he has in his boSal horses is something others can just dreaM ABOUT!
Kinda like telling Ian Miller that he knows nothing, far as producing and riding International show jumpers!
Here is a video with Larry Trocha, training with ahackamore, on atwo yea rold, ridden for a few months in a snaffle.
I can’t think of one champion hackamore person that does not start with a snaffle-not meaning that there aren’t any. Maybe put out a name//
[QUOTE=KIloBright;7822633]
Sorry, but that is not true.
Traditionally , working cowhorses are started in a snaffle, then moved to a bosal, then to a thin bosal and bit, and then finally up in a spade
Les Volgt, who I was able yo watch at the Mane Even, giving several clinics on Hackamore horsemanship, is regarded as THE leading expert on producing a bosal horse, and the softness he has in his boSal horses is something others can just dreaM ABOUT!
Kinda like telling Ian Miller that he knows nothing, far as producing and riding International show jumpers!
Here is a video with Larry Trocha, training with ahackamore, on atwo yea rold, ridden for a few months in a snaffle.
I can’t think of one champion hackamore person that does not start with a snaffle-not meaning that there aren’t any. Maybe put out a name//
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2XVcQr97y4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2XVcQr97y4[/QUOTE]
The snaffle bit “tradition” is relatively new. Maybe since the seventies on, with the creation of the snaffle bit futurity, as far as making a reined cow horse.
The tradition of a stock horse goes back much further, and a snaffle was not a big part of that. The original vaqueros didn’t use snaffles at all. The horses were started as four year olds in a hackmore. Later, the snaffle was used for certain problems.
The snaffle bit training has created a different kind of horse and look.
If you only use show champions as your gauge, then you miss out on a lot of good hackamore men. Before the snaffle bit futurity, horses were not shown in a snaffle. One of the most prestigious events of the era was the hackamore class at the Cow Palace in San Fransisco.
I have been around a few good hackamore men. If you ask Benny Guitron, as he grew up, he didn’t know what a snaffle was. You made a stock horse in a hackamore, then two rein, then spade.
Now the spade in competition is rarely seen. Many snaffle bitters go into a shanked leverage curb of some kind, including draw reins and quick stops and all kinds of things that are not traditional. The horses are schooled in all kinds of things. The hackamore ends up an after thought.
The important thing is to know the difference, and not expect the hackamore to work like a snaffle.
As far as names, the ones more known as hackamore men that showed cow horses, were guys like Johnny Brazzil, Ronnie Richards, Bobby Ingersol, and Benny Guitron. All these guys later became snaffle bit greats, but their roots were in the hackamore horse.
Lest you folks disappear too far down the working cowhorse rabbit warren, remember that the OP is talking about starting endurance horses; those aren’t the same thing.
Les Vogt is a respected trainer, but if you listen to him or watch his materials (Cowhorse U), he specifically says he sets his horses up to want to stop, and have to be asked to go. That’s the opposite of what an endurance rider wants to arrange.
Martin Black commented this year in AB on the difference between starting ranch colts and starting show colts. He said that you want the show horses to want to stop so you can build up to the hard turns and stops, but the extreme of that type of horse makes for an annoying ranch mount because you have to pedal him all day long. He also only introduces a snaffle if the training “customer” wants…he’ll happily start in a bosal, like many folks.
Les Vogt uses it as a pressure device, which fits fine in the snaffle progression (also a pressure tool). Go to youtube and watch his videos…he’s about obedience more than signal and balance.
A bosal is just a tool in the end, and not only the show disciplines use it. You can use it as a signal device, or you can use it as a pressure device…take your pick.
I know, we hi-jacked the thread. It was over anyway. LOL
Missed that the OP was starting an endurance horse. I see those horses ridden in bittless bridles quite often, and a side pull would seem a more logical choice for starting that type of horse, as the signal is more clear, and there is a certain art to using a hackamore correctly
The double was used to convince horses that they could not run through a bosal, and not many people know how to do that correctly
[QUOTE=KIloBright;7823388]
Missed that the OP was starting an endurance horse. I see those horses ridden in bittless bridles quite often, and a side pull would seem a more logical choice for starting that type of horse, as the signal is more clear, and there is a certain art to using a hackamore correctly
The double was used to convince horses that they could not run through a bosal, and not many people know how to do that correctly[/QUOTE]
The double I learned is already used on the ground when you first work with a horse, then translates to riding.
In principle, it is a way to connect the lead/rein action to the hind legs, when you pick up on the lead or rein, the horse learns thru doubling to rock his weight back, lift his front and be ready to move lightly, whichever way you ask.
It is in fact the opposite from disengaging different parts of the horse, as many do today.
When working cattle, a horse taught properly to double will, when you barely pick the rein, curl over itself and stop and turn cattle for you, slick as a whistle.
The horse is then truly using itself properly.
You can see that in how the horse works, soft over his back, deep under himself and loose in front.
The opposite would be a horse that turns stiff like a slab, inverted, head high and some holding their head crooked, manhandled into the turn.
Of course, it helps if the horse also has some natural cow to go with it, but training right helps it use it’s body right to stick with that cow.
I have found this whole discussion fascinating! I had no idea about this hackamore “parallel universe”. As mentioned, a lot of it may not be relevant or appropriate for starting an endurance horse, but that doesn’t make it less interesting to hear about.
Don’t stop on my account! 
-Lisa
[QUOTE=Ozalynda;7823583]
I have found this whole discussion fascinating! I had no idea about this hackamore “parallel universe”. As mentioned, a lot of it may not be relevant or appropriate for starting an endurance horse, but that doesn’t make it less interesting to hear about.
Don’t stop on my account!
-Lisa[/QUOTE]
As it was told to me by those that lived this, many of those working cattle classes and shows in the West started with the local traditions, showing what the vaqueros did, that were awesome horsemen.
Now, they did so much so well, but lets realize that, in those days, if we look at the drawings and paintings with a critical eye, not just to admire them, we can see that their horses were “up on the bridle”, inverted and looked stiff and resistant.
That is a function of the spade bit, that works by keeping the well trained horse’s head in one position only, stiffly there, because if not the mouthpiece “bites” the horse.
All the years of working with a horse to be soft and move a certain way, then because of the old proud heritage of a horse being a way to show off, the old timers believing that stiff, high headed look the best way to show off, that is where they ended.
Then, once those shows started, again as it was told to me, every so often they had “some of those Texas trainers come over and clean up”, their horses worked cattle so much better.
Of course, those didn’t do as well in the classes where the finer ways of riding prevailed, only in the cutting type classes, working cattle.
In those days, those trainers spent all day and night talking horses, they rode together and went to eat and drink together, so they learned from each other.
They told me they watched the TX trainers and learned from them how to let the horse work more free and adapted that.
That is maybe, I don’t know, when they started using the snaffle to train.
Not that they could not have done the same with what they had, they were excellent trainers and, once you know a concept, you can make it work with any tools given, but maybe watching what those eastern trainers could do with a snaffle, decided it was the tool that helped train, not just the concept of teaching the horse to work more “loose”.
The Texas trainers, on the other hand, were very rough around the edges, didn’t know some of them even mere basics, that horses had leads, they were truly riding by the seat of their pants and letting the horse do the work.
It was their natural ability as horsemen that let them ride horses balances well under them and, of course, only the better, smarter ones were the ones traveling and doing well, wherever they went.
The ones at home in the East, well, most of them were just not that good, very rough around the edges.
Some of those learned quickly and became better, some were never very good, just as those in the West, some were very good at using their talent to train and ride horses that balanced well, even when ending with a spade in the horse’s mouth, but many others didn’t.
In reality, what we have today is a mixture of different styles of training and riding and showing and I expect it is still evolving.
When you watch the West buckaroo’s riding, you still can see their horses tell you, they handle part of the time showing resistances, inverting when handled with a lead if on the ground, a rein if mounted.
What is important is to learn that difference, to acquire an educated eye for what is correct, to learn the basic concepts of what we are after and how to get there, to choose whatever techniques work for us and not stick with any that is not working, just because is tradition or someone else is telling us is the way to do it, if it is not working for us.
The phrase, a good horseman is evident from the time it walks up to a horse, the horse tells on you what he thinks of you right then.
There is no right or wrong, some prefer their horses to work a certain way, others a different way.
Some like the look and feel of the finished spade horses, some the looseness of the, as some of the West trainers were saying decades ago, “those barely broke eastern horses that keep beating us!”
A good horseman learns from all and does what is best for it’s horse and task.
The level of horsemanship has increased tremendously around here in the past decade or two with the Ranch Rodeo shows, where people see how others train and show and learn so much else that, in their little part of the world, was not easily learned.
Now, these discussions went on for days and nights and hours horseback, it is way more involved than can be said in a few paragraphs and without examples and back and forth talk.
It is not about any one is “better”, it is about the differences, what they are and, over all of that, it is about an intense passion for all horses.
[QUOTE=Bluey;7823608]
As it was told to me by those that lived this, many of those working cattle classes and shows in the West started with the local traditions, showing what the vaqueros did, that were awesome horsemen.
Now, they did so much so well, but lets realize that, in those days, if we look at the drawings and paintings with a critical eye, not just to admire them, we can see that their horses were “up on the bridle”, inverted and looked stiff and resistant.
That is a function of the spade bit, that works by keeping the well trained horse’s head in one position only, stiffly there, because if not the mouthpiece “bites” the horse.
All the years of working with a horse to be soft and move a certain way, then because of the old proud heritage of a horse being a way to show off, the old timers believing that stiff, high headed look the best way to show off, that is where they ended.
Then, once those shows started, again as it was told to me, every so often they had “some of those Texas trainers come over and clean up”, their horses worked cattle so much better.
Of course, those didn’t do as well in the classes where the finer ways of riding prevailed, only in the cutting type classes, working cattle.
In those days, those trainers spent all day and night talking horses, they rode together and went to eat and drink together, so they learned from each other.
They told me they watched the TX trainers and learned from them how to let the horse work more free and adapted that.
That is maybe, I don’t know, when they started using the snaffle to train.
Not that they could not have done the same with what they had, they were excellent trainers and, once you know a concept, you can make it work with any tools given, but maybe watching what those eastern trainers could do with a snaffle, decided it was the tool that helped train, not just the concept of teaching the horse to work more “loose”.
The Texas trainers, on the other hand, were very rough around the edges, didn’t know some of them even mere basics, that horses had leads, they were truly riding by the seat of their pants and letting the horse do the work.
It was their natural ability as horsemen that let them ride horses balances well under them and, of course, only the better, smarter ones were the ones traveling and doing well, wherever they went.
The ones at home in the East, well, most of them were just not that good, very rough around the edges.
Some of those learned quickly and became better, some were never very good, just as those in the West, some were very good at using their talent to train and ride horses that balanced well, even when ending with a spade in the horse’s mouth, but many others didn’t.
In reality, what we have today is a mixture of different styles of training and riding and showing and I expect it is still evolving.
When you watch the West buckaroo’s riding, you still can see their horses tell you, they handle part of the time showing resistances, inverting when handled with a lead if on the ground, a rein if mounted.
What is important is to learn that difference, to acquire an educated eye for what is correct, to learn the basic concepts of what we are after and how to get there, to choose whatever techniques work for us and not stick with any that is not working, just because is tradition or someone else is telling us is the way to do it, if it is not working for us.
The phrase, a good horseman is evident from the time it walks up to a horse, the horse tells on you what he thinks of you right then.
There is no right or wrong, some prefer their horses to work a certain way, others a different way.
Some like the look and feel of the finished spade horses, some the looseness of the, as some of the West trainers were saying decades ago, “those barely broke eastern horses that keep beating us!”
A good horseman learns from all and does what is best for it’s horse and task.
The level of horsemanship has increased tremendously around here in the past decade or two with the Ranch Rodeo shows, where people see how others train and show and learn so much else that, in their little part of the world, was not easily learned.
Now, these discussions went on for days and nights and hours horseback, it is way more involved than can be said in a few paragraphs and without examples and back and forth talk.
It is not about any one is “better”, it is about the differences, what they are and, over all of that, it is about an intense passion for all horses.[/QUOTE]
Sorry Bluey, I am calling BS.
It is obvious from your post you have never made a bridle horse, and do not understand a spade bit at all. You are speaking as if you are expert, when I can tell it is your opinion not based on experience.
[QUOTE=Wirt;7823679]
Sorry Bluey, I am calling BS.
It is obvious from your post you have never made a bridle horse, and do not understand a spade bit at all. You are speaking as if you are expert, when I can tell it is your opinion not based on experience.[/QUOTE]
I have said exactly where my opinion comes from, never said I was an expert.
Take it as that, one more opinion and where it comes from.
That is what I heard from those that were training and showing in the 1940’s and 50’s and what they told, as they experienced it.
My adobe program is not working today, but for what I remember of this video, it explains a bit what I am trying to show, what an educated eye can see, some of the differences:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5X7iss69II
You can see how that horse responds to the person at the end of the reins, how it braces, inverted, how it is not working over his back and coming to hand.
Now, remember, that is a few minutes, maybe the horse has some new headgear is trying to figure, maybe it is the horse, that is somewhat resistant and maybe it just having a bad day, or responding more to another horse somewhere close, not necessarily the rider.
I can’t get my videos to play or my computer to download the new Adobe version it tells me I need, so I can’t go looking for a video that shows the opposite, a horse that is truly balanced and shows it by the way it moves in space and the person around that horse respects and expects that.
Will see if I can get my computer straighten out, until then, lets see what you can tell me, why what I was told is not so, not just that “it is not so and you know better”.
Ok, got it fixed, now I can explain better, the first few seconds of that video, where he is trotting the horse around, is that truly a horse working over his back, or is that a bit bracey there, leaning into the inside shoulder?
Now, here is another video, same horse and rider.
You can see the same, but much better here, the horse is working at times right, but still never quite gives, as is clear around 3:34, when the rider gives slack and the horse holds tight, is not responding with it’s own release, is not truly light and responsive as it could be:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFmRus56miQ
That is something basic, that many, many miss, that is hard to achieve all the time, when you ride, as someone said, horses are not widgets that will do the same the same way all the time, so there is that too that needs to be taken into consideration.
Watch how this horse moves, around 1:20, without resistance and soft and he is a ranch horse, won’t do the fancy movements arena horses do, but he is working right:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATE9bhsect0
Don’t have to watch the whole, just found one that show a good way of moving, for a horse working cattle, compared with a horse moving a bit stiffer, but appropriate, evidently, for what that one video wants to show.
As I say, differences, each one wants out of their horses something or another, not all the same, but we should learn to see those differences.
That is how we learn, we look and keep asking questions and this helps us determine for ourselves where we want to go then with what we are doing, with the horses we have.
Just as some wax poetic about gaited saddlebreds motoring around a ring, others like to see different ways of going in their horses and none is better or wrong, they are just that, different.
The question here, the very interesting questions, is why and how and when that is so.
[QUOTE=Wirt;7823679]
Sorry Bluey, I am calling BS.
It is obvious from your post you have never made a bridle horse, and do not understand a spade bit at all. You are speaking as if you are expert, when I can tell it is your opinion not based on experience.[/QUOTE]
Her posts are almost verbatim what you’d find reading the whiny essay on Spade Bits. Not worth the time to read, if you haven’t.
You either get spades or you don’t. Regurgitating other people’s opinions really doesn’t accomplish much without a frame of reference.
[QUOTE=aktill;7823978]
Her posts are almost verbatim what you’d find reading the whiny essay titled “One Mans Opinion on Spade Bits”. Not worth the time to read, if you haven’t.
You either get spades or you don’t. Regurgitating other people’s opinions really doesn’t accomplish much without a frame of reference.[/QUOTE]
Shooting the messenger still doesn’t explain where you stand.
How about explaining how you “get” spades?
By the way, I don’t know what you are talking about, have not heard of who you are talking about.
I heard what I know from years ago, Don Dodge one to mention some of this and yes, he won his share in bridle competitions, using spades.
I don’t really like to speak about these differences because the vaquero tradition followers get so defensive and insulted, but won’t show where those are wrong and what is right in their eyes.
Tell me, what do you see here?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A9WIs03n2c
There is the one horse the video seems to be about and how he handles with the hackamore and then you may compare him to the light dun horse the one in the black hat after 5:10 is riding, how he handles.
Can you see the difference and what are those?
[QUOTE=Wirt;7823679]
Sorry Bluey, I am calling BS.
It is obvious from your post you have never made a bridle horse, and do not understand a spade bit at all. You are speaking as if you are expert, when I can tell it is your opinion not based on experience.[/QUOTE]
Her posts are almost verbatim what you’d find reading the whiny essay titled “One Mans Opinion on Spade Bits”. Not worth the time to read, if you haven’t.
You either get spades or you don’t. Regurgitating other people’s opinions really doesn’t accomplish much without a frame of reference.
If I thought it would accomplish anything, I would. Based off experience with these threads, however, you just like to get people riled up then adopt an air of innocence when they do.
Basically, like your last post.
If anyone wants to learn, go learn from a good trainer or try a spade. Not rocket science.
[QUOTE=aktill;7824009]
If I thought it would accomplish anything, I would. Based off experience with these threads, however, you just like to get people riled up then adopt an air of innocence when they do.
Basically, like your last post.
If anyone wants to learn, go learn from a good trainer or try a spade. Not rocket science.[/QUOTE]
I added a video.
Also, remember, there are different kind of spade bits, not all are one type and each horse may work better with one or another or yet another, that also comes into play here.
Here is another video, this one is about roping, but watch how everyone handles their horses also, how the bigger around hackamores do slip up and down, some considerably, like the tall drink of water type horse on the right around 3:38:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbyo0Tk2CYE
You can see all kinds of horse handling there, very interesting, some driven by the circumstances, some fine handling even in tight spots, some horses better than others, some greener than others, all so very interesting.
[QUOTE=Bluey;7824014]
I added a video.
Also, remember, there are different kind of spade bits, not all are one type and each horse may work better with one or another or yet another, that also comes into play here.
Here is another video, this one is about roping, but watch how everyone handles their horses also, how the bigger around hackamores do slip up and down, some considerably, like the tall drink of water type horse on the right around 3:38:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbyo0Tk2CYE
You can see all kinds of horse handling there, very interesting, some driven by the circumstances, some fine handling even in tight spots, some horses better than others, some greener than others, all so very interesting.[/QUOTE]
You have obviously taken on the role of our teacher, when I didn’t agree to be your student.
The old vaquero tradition of training, and reading Ed Corrnell’s book on Hackamore Reinsmanship, gives me a picture of a horse ridden mainly off of the hands
Carrol Rose states that the training now used to produce a Spade bit horse is much kinder then in the days of the Vaqueros.
I think ‘we’ get horses a lot softer in the body now, and when I go to watch a senior working cowhorse up in a spade, Mona Lisa or Half breed, I see a horse much softer in his entire body, then those old ‘bracy’ old California type horses
Working cowhorse dry patterns alone have so much more finesse now, approaching that of straight reiners
Look at old pictures of reining stops, and you see a horse with front legs jammed into the ground, head up, often mouth open
Ultimately, body control creates a soft horse, and not what is on his head, and I for one get tired of bits being declared cruel by bittless advocates
If I am riding my horse on a loose rein, with my horse just packing that bit, with a closed and happy mouth, how is any bittless configuration better?
Many bittless devises create severe pressure on parts of the horse’s face where little fat protects bone or nerves
Bittless demos are possible, because the horse is soft in his entire body, with that bit just used as a signal devise
The past is not always better, and I for one see increased finesse and softness today, by some of the top in the industry.
Far as roping-you can’t use that event to demonstrate softness, as there is no time to set a horse up for a stop, and also why roping uses tie downs
Those horses are stopped off of hands, when compared to a top reiner today, stopping off of leg and seat on a loose rein
[QUOTE=KIloBright;7824293]
The old vaquero tradition of training, and reading Ed Corrnell’s book on Hackamore Reinsmanship, gives me a picture of a horse ridden mainly off of the hands
Carrol Rose states that the training now used to produce a Spade bit horse is much kinder then in the days of the Vaqueros.
I think ‘we’ get horses a lot softer in the body now, and when I go to watch a senior working cowhorse up in a spade, Mona Lisa or Half breed, I see a horse much softer in his entire body, then those old ‘bracy’ old California type horses
Working cowhorse dry patterns alone have so much more finesse now, approaching that of straight reiners
Look at old pictures of reining stops, and you see a horse with front legs jammed into the ground, head up, often mouth open
Ultimately, body control creates a soft horse, and not what is on his head, and I for one get tired of bits being declared cruel by bittless advocates
If I am riding my horse on a loose rein, with my horse just packing that bit, with a closed and happy mouth, how is any bittless configuration better?
Many bittless devises create severe pressure on parts of the horse’s face where little fat protects bone or nerves
Bittless demos are possible, because the horse is soft in his entire body, with that bit just used as a signal devise
The past is not always better, and I for one see increased finesse and softness today, by some of the top in the industry.
Far as roping-you can’t use that event to demonstrate softness, as there is no time to set a horse up for a stop, and also why roping uses tie downs
Those horses are stopped off of hands, when compared to a top reiner today, stopping off of leg and seat on a loose rein[/QUOTE]
That is right, is what I understand also.
Now, when it comes to talking bits, be careful not to think that, when some mention this or that about this or that bit, that means they are automatically calling them, as you say, “cruel”.
Any we use on a horse is only as good to communicate, as gentle or harsh, as the person using it.
In the video about the bridle horse, the fellow talking does explain that one bit is only for the horse to carry it and to signal with it, not to use it for more contact type training or working where you have to keep taking a hold of the reins, at times not as politely as we may wish, in the middle of some situations.
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