To me, her post 100% says this horse is uncomfortable in his mouth although I would probably go the vet/ dental route first before I did anything else.
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Indeed, but with horses you always have two things to deal with. First, the pain of whatever pathology is involved. Then, after you deal with and resolve the pathology, you deal with the horse’s MEMORY of that pain. That second item can be a REAL challenge. Horses don’t forget; as prey animals forgetting something would be counter-survival. So we have to lay new memories over old ones. This is the art of the trainer.
G.
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I’ve ridden countless horses in a halter/sidepull/hackamore with no deeper thought than “let’s try this today” with no negative results. If you’re concerned, start in the round pen and ask the horse to back up and turn from the ground first. Do note that hackamores are leverage devices and not very suitable to consistent contact. They’re more of a ask and let go sort of thing. If you or your rider like contact, a different tool would probably be a better choice.
That said, if you’re using one of those no sedation, no speculum, not a vet dentists that are so popular around here…it could be very illuminating to have the horse sedated and examined with a speculum. At the least, it’s very difficult to float the back of the mouth without a speculum. Probably impossible. Points back there can certainly make them unhappy about contact.
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I’d go one step further and say that recognizing when a horse is unhappy and trying to fix it is the foundation of good horsemanship. A horse isn’t a machine, it’s going to have opinions and preferences and physical issues and past experiences, all of which need to be taken into account. Not everything can be fixed with more or better training.
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Of course but if there is a pain issue and you don’t fix it first, the training is rather a moot point.
We had really nice 4 year old mare, bred out the hilt, working with one of the top YH trainers in the US. She was having major issues with her mouth that definitely weren’t training issues. Everything seemed okay under regular vet inspection other than some wonky blood work. Took her to the dental specialist at New Bolton, turned out the mare had a tooth basically growing the wrong way (back into the jaw) and causing a massive infection. Three surgeries and much aftercare later, the mare is now successfully showing PSG. If someone had insisted it was just a training issue, that mare would have died. You can’t fix pain with training anymore than you can fix true training issues with medication.
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I agree, but if it’s a pain issue, why not get to the bottom of the pain instead of trying various bits? Wouldn’t it be better to have a happy, pain free horse than one the is just living with a tolerable level of pain and hoping no one puts a bit in it’s mouth? I question the horsemanship since the horse is getting bonked in the mouth. And if it’s pain, that would transfer to leading the horse by the reins while on the ground. They do things while leading like turn their heads to get a fly etc that should provoke a pain response.
A competent horseman would get to the bottom of it in an hour at most. Get the horse to give to pressure with a rope halter, then put a bit in it’s mouth to see if the correct response transfers over. If there is not a pain issue, you’ll have normal amount of time to learn the response.
Since it’s been years, hopefully someone affiliated with the horse has thought to have possible medical issues checked by now. I feel bad for the horse.
I switched to a hackamore because of my hands (I have a degenerative hand disease and mostly ride one-handed now), and also because it’s easier for the mare to graze if I want to let her. Mare is pretty good about whatever I throw at her WRT rein holds. There is not the level of lateral control you have with a bit, but she’s good with leg cues. And I definitely have to be more careful about rein pressure.
I’m using a Little S hackamore with a beta noseband. It came with a fairly rough leather noseband and she did not like that at all. She likes that the curb chain is further back on a Little S, rather than just behind her chin. My understanding is that it’s pretty mild for a leverage device.
I know I’m far from fantastic as a rider, but this works.
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I don’t suggest otherwise. I’ve noted in many discussions of this type a suggestion that fixing the problem of pain ends the problem. It doesn’t in all circumstances. Sometimes that memory is more difficult to deal with than the initial pain. Hence my comments.
G.
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I ride all of mine in just a rolled nose rope halter. I’ve transitioned quite a few. Some, I rode in a bit and switched my reins mid ride to see how they did, knowing they were quiet and focused at that point. Some, I worked with in an enclosed area to be sure I had a whoa. One, I forgot completely and didn’t realize she’d gone well bitless until I saw the photos after the ride. All have done fine - I’ve never had an issue, and I don’t even own a bridle anymore. I ride quite a bit, and it works well here.
I just wanted to say that this is best description of the way a hackamore should work that I have ever seen. Thanks, Bluey – I have never thought about them this way; doing so also provides a really helpful perspective on how to train a hackamore horse.
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How is your beautiful mare doing?
The woman I half lease my horse from rides him in both. Dressage is his favorite. He goes in a double-jointed loose ring snaffle and prefers a lot of contact with you. When she first got him he was burned out from over-training. She backed him off and did tons of hacking out with him. At some point, she got him going in an English hackamore so he could nibble on grass while on their walks. I’ve not tried riding in it yet because I’ve been told they can be more severe than a bit and i’m uncomfortable as I’ve never used one. I could ask her how she introduced the hackamore. She was a professional rider, fwiw.
I just switched it and started riding. This was a mechanical hackamore (English) with short shanks, and I made sure I was alone in the ring the first time, but I’d toodled around with her in a halter and lead rope and was pretty certain she’d listen to it. In fact, her relief was obvious (I’d never been able to find a bit she liked) and we’ve never used a bit since then.
She is blessed to have you, too.
Do you think you can get that same poll elevation with a rope halter?
I thought that part of the reason that hackamore-making was so meticulous was because the shape, weight and balance of it helped create the particular “sweet spot” for a horse’s head and neck. I think the article describes that. I’m a huge fan of rope halters and pretty capable of putting a horse’s head where I want it in a snaffle. But this element of hackmore riding take it to a whole 'nother level.
OP, I have done this lots with horses. I have an old grooming halter that I can tighten down around the nose. I put a piece of sheepskin over the part that goes over the boney bridge of the horse’s nose and attach reins to either ring on the side. With that contraption anchored on his head, I can now ride him with the same feel and philosophy that I would with starting a colt in a snaffle. I teach him to give to pressure on one rein first until he gets that he should just always soften to whatever rein pressure he feels-- on his face, just as in his mouth. It works fine.
I use this grooming halter thing mainly because I have it. But what I like about it better than a side-pull, a hackamore (certainly!), side pulls or bitless bridles is that there is no “play” in there from the equipment. IMO, the more the equipment moves around between the signal you create with your hand and the horse’s head, the better rider you have to be. Things that are loose on the horse’s head require lots of finesse-- feel and timing and discipline-- from the rider. Things like Dr. Cook’s Bridle or an “Indian hackamore” release too slowly, IMO, to be a good training tool. In fact, they are unfair to the horse and therefore deleterious to the project of making him light and responsive.
Hope this helps.
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Not necessarily. I think we ought to ride a horse with the least possible pain in our signal that he can perceive.
That said, the horse that I most often rode in my bitless contraption was also one who “didn’t like the bit”-- he was quite busy with his mouth, “complaining” about the injustice of having to have even the softest, most expensive plastic mullen mouth bit in his princess mouth. I’ll tell you what: A big part of that horse’s problem was that he was behind my leg. He was lazy and kind and bred to be a hunter. He had the perfect good ol’ boy mind for that job. But it also made him lazy. When someone put the screws to him and really rode him up into the bridle, that fussing with the bit went away.
So this horse did train me a little bit, mainly to accept his being behind my leg in a way that was common to his type and his job. The way that this horse suckered me really wasn’t about the bit at all. If I were riding him now, I’d do things differently. But this horse was also naturally oral-- from his earliest days, he’s express stress (good or bad) with his lips a little bit.
If I were making this horse up as a bridle horse, I’d still ride him better than I did when I had him, with respect to getting him more responsive, less casual in his mind and lighter to my leg. But I’d also try hard to find the bit that made him comfortable. Because if the horse has gotten broke enough to take, say, that 90% of his direction from my body and I’m just using the spade bit to make fine adjustments to his longitudinal balance, don’t you think he has earned the right to comfortable equipment, even if he’s a princess and has to have the bit made for him?
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I long line my horses in my grooming halter. I would not start a horse in a bit-free piece of equipment this way. And I certainly wouldn’t involve a hackamore in that! Here’s the take away:
I long line my horses without a bit in their mouth because, standing on the ground, I can put way, way too many pounds of pressure on a rein. I can’t possibly duplicate that in the saddle, so my horses are taught to respond to less. And I never want to screw them over by suddenly changing the rules and pulling too hard or, God forbid, have them step on one of the lines and punish themselves harshly in the mouth.
For the same reason, I don’t think you will be able to teach a horse the required lightness that you’ll want in the saddle from the ground. IMO, and for most of us, most of the time, the rein signals you’ll give a horse with long lines are just too coarse. I have yet to find a system that allows a release that is as quick as what I can do with my hand and arm when I’m riding. And if you aren’t releasing quickly when the horse gives, the efficacy of your training will be limited. In fact, this is why bosal-making and the choice of bosal is so important. It’s the shape and weigh of it that determines how it will move on the horse’s head when you pick up or drop your hand. And those movements are creating the patterns of signals that the horse is trying to feel and learn.
I will say that long lining and double lunging is great for installing “When I say ‘whoa,’ I damn-well mean it” button in a horse. Most horses don’t need an explicit schooling on this; they figure it out as they are started. But for a couple of them (mare who thought went through a bolting stage, I’m looking at you), it was safe and effective for both of us.
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The last bit, in bold, isn’t true, for the reason you explained above with the snaffle: How the horse responds to the signal you give him with your hand constitutes information. This is true even when you ride with a drape in the rein, but move that complex bit and weighted reins with the intention of “saying X” to your horse and he “answers” one way or the other.
And I don’t think all bitless bridles are shitty tin can-and-string devices. As I said above, piece of equipment that releases too slowly or takes too slowly (I can’t think of an example of the latter) muddies the communication.
That is right IF you have high-enough standards for lightness in hand on the ground. As an English rider, I didn’t realize how unbroke and dull (and sometimes rude) on the ground most of the horses around me were. It was eye-opening to see just how high the standards were for lightness among the folks who used stiff rope halters and did groundwork as part of their training.
I do think this bit of training-- getting very light to various kinds of pressure you can put on a horse’s head and poll via a good, well-fitting, stiff-enough rope halter-- is helpful for putting a horse in some kind of bitless equipment.
