Thank you for your response! Sounds like our horses are a lot a like. My young man is a little like “pushing a rope” too! Lucky for me, he’s athletic, great-brained, and blessed with a lovely, inquisitive temperament. It was good to hear the length of your timeline. Maybe I’m just wanting too much, too fast. Under saddle, he’s able to hold self carriage for a few steps here and there, which is a start.
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Ehhh… but saying that people are using gagetry to tie their horses heads down - which has an extremely negative connotation- when many very accomplished horsemen (note I did not say riders, because that is different) use them and recommend their use with experienced hands - is doing a little more than saying “I don’t prefer to use them”. It’s insinuating that everyone that does is “tying their horses heads down” when perhaps it’s just that you don’t know how to use them properly, or have not found value in using them.
That’s fine. But the tone you’re using is condemning, not just expressing an opinion.
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You are correct the phrase “tying the horse’s head down” has a negative connotation. And I did use it on purpose snarking at a poster that was annoying me.
Outside of our feelings about the phrase, gadgets that attach the horse’s head to his body, even loosely and used correctly, are in fact tying the horse’s head down. Clipping it down, buckling it down, strapping it down. Whatever. Physically and solidly affixed in a manner that limits the range of motion. Certainly there are degrees of down. Even a simple standing martingale that is preventing the horse from flinging his head all the way up to the moon is a tie down. Why do we have such a negative association the simplest words to describe our gadgets?
A long standing history of use isn’t much of a recommendation from a culture that uses the term “broken” to describe a horse trained to ride imo. Others are willing to die on the turn out hill, evidently I’m gonna die here on this tie down hill.
I believe I mentioned this up thread, but in case I didn’t or you missed it in this lengthy thread, IMO side reins are far more useful for a horse that has already been solidly trained in contact. The OP query was regarding a young horse green in the bridle. I responded that I preferred long lines to side reins. Prefer, not side reins are the devil. Just prefer another gadget.
Long lines run through a surcingle could be described as employing “leverage”. Others might find that horrific. I’m not going to deny that using leverage gives me an advantage just because “using leverage” sounds negative.
I never once said, side reins are evil and people who use them shouldn’t have horses. So maybe I’m not on this hill quite as hard as some of the turn out folks. Because I’m not that worried about other people’s gadgets.
I counter, that if you can’t easily identify, acknowledge and accept the potential pitfalls of the use of side reins then it may be you who hasn’t been thoroughly trained in their use. We could go back and forth all day long about who knows and who doesn’t. And that would be silly. Because this is the internet and neither of us knows squat about the other.
Some successful and gifted horseman don’t use side reins or any other “gadgets”, not even long lines. Others do.
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So I saw something new to me IRL the other day. I guess it’s a homemade Pessoa rig. From what I could see, there is a line from the snaffle through the surcingle around the back of the horse’s legs, back up through the other side of the surcingle to the bit again. Plus a longe line. I couldn’t tell if the longe line was independent or if the owner had run the rope through the bit on the inside bit to put more leverage on the thing. The owner was holding a rope the same diameter as the body gadget, not an obviously different longe line.
Horse is an OTST. The lines were fairly tight. Effect was alternately inverting or getting a swan neck, high and compressed and dipping in front of the withers. I think that’s what handler was after.
Owner is a fairly experienced horse person with nerve and balance and a sticky seat, but poor form with hands and legs, and not a big tool kit for schooling “dressage.” I have no idea if one of the barn instructors set this up, or if owner has just picked it up from Google.
I will say that I don’t like the “pessoa rigs” because the motion of the hind legs perks them in the face every step.
I have set up a horse with an equiband system + side reins, which has the same impact on encouraging them to step under, while isolating each piece so the horse doesn’t get punished in the mouth.
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I highly recommend “The Complete Training of Horse and Rider” by Alois Podhajsky. May your understanding broaden with education in classical principles developed over centuries.
A 50 year old text that I read as part of a working student gig in my youth does not change my opinion.
Nor does “we have been doing it this way for centuries”.
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The trainers I know that get the best biomechanical results don’t use side reins but have a full tool box of ways to strengthen and lighten horses through ground work and in the saddle.
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Yup yup.
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What would change my opinion of your opinion is some credentials. Otherwise, opinions are like a**holes. Everyone has one.
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Why is this thread so combative? All lenapesadie said is that she preferred not to use them, and people are continuing to try to change her mind. Her first post actually said:
I prefer long lining myself. I think it’s far too easy to eff up the walk with side reins particularly on a horse that isn’t fairly advanced. I’m a dressage person so developing the walk might be of higher priority to me than someone developing a hunter. YMMV.
That being said, IME horses work over their backs when relaxed, sound, and in well fitted tack. Under saddle and on the lunge / long lines. It’s my preference to exhaust those three criteria before moving to more equipment. If you’re preference is different that’s perfectly understandable. Side reins are certainly well respected and can be very effective. I do far prefer ones with elastic.
Personally I don’t see the need to do a lot of lunging at all, with or without side reins. But I have no credentials, nor any horses in training. So my opinion is just that.
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Bless your heart
I’m not sure what happened here either. That’s COTH though! It’s like a soap opera, never know what could happen!
When the Student is ready, the Master will appear.
Oh FFS
Get over yourself
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Excuse me, but I’m not the one who thinks they know better than the Spanish Riding School of Vienna?
Excuse my I’m not the one trying to argue about someone else’s preference to use or not use a training aid.
That’s great that side reins work for you and your horses. Lots of people feel the same way!
Some people don’t.
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I use long reins as well as side reins and as I said before, He can completely invert or go long and low in the side reins so he is not tied down.
The pessoa I have not used but I have witnessed it in real life. I also don’t like it as to me the horse seems to get a jerk in the mouth every time the hindleg goes back. The pessoa is classed as a gadget. Side reins are not classed as a gadget.
As for time frame. Another horse who was bought by good horsemen and know conformation, but his brain was not up to it. We took our time. He was green and hubby was a beginner and we did not have an arena and were riding in a 50 acre paddock.
So Sim was lunged in side reins and then I lunged hubby on him with looser side reins, so as the pair could progress and bond.
That worked - Sim now owns hubby!
In that paddock I only cantered occasionally around the paddock so as it was not a wall. It was 2 years and in an arena that we started canter and he can now do walk canter and counter canter. Some may say it took too long but Sim doesn’t care.
