Tack Affecting Movement

[Bluey]

@Scribbler

I got a huge fluffy girth cover for my super picky (chestnut) Paint (mare). I though she’d love it. She wouldn’t even walk away from the mounting block because OMG fluff in her armpits. Took it off, all good.

That happened to me with a western mohair breast collar.
Horse always wore leather breast collars, one day used a different saddle that had a pretty mohair one and horse would not walk on, when asked to he would bite at his chest.
Took breast collar off and horse was happy to go on.

In the old days practically all horse were ridden in plain snaffles.
When you were riding one of the finely trained horses that went in a double bridle, that was like adding power steering to them, horses seemed to become way lighter and more responsive and generally happier in that more precise contact than they had been working with plain snaffles, as one dressage coach demonstrated for us.

My soapbox on keeping horses comfortable in their tack around the head is, fit bridles where when they move from horse movement or rider using reins, the cheek pieces are not moving up against their eyes.
That is very irritating and distracting to horses.
Take videos and slo-mo or pause them and notice horses wincing as bridles jiggle around their heads.
The more loose-goose a bridle fits, the more apt it is to walk around their head.
Fit them well so they move a minimum and stay away from their eyes.

It all comes down to LISTEN to the horses and let them know we are doing so.

[beowulf]

Another one with a similar experience with mohair items. I used my TB’s mohair girth on the filly yesterday and theatrics were had until I went back up to the barn and put her girth on. No issue after that. She kept nipping at the girth and biting/rubbing where the mohair sits, so I guess maybe the bands between the hair irritated her. Who knows, but glad I figured out her preference is for leather!

[Jackie_Cochran]

Thank you @Bluey for that quote about double bridles.

I do not “need” a double bridle to control horses. My rides are mostly walking and a little bit of trotting. I have MS and often my hands are unsteady.

Right now I am riding two horses in a double bridle at two different stables. One lady, who rides mostly Western, told me she wants me to ride her precious heart horse mare only in the double bridle because the mare seems happier with it.

The other stable, well my riding teacher has gotten used to my “odd” ideas about riding a horse (Forward Seat ala Littauer) and my odd mania for riding in a double bridle. I have introduced 5 or 6 of her horses to the double bridle over the last decade or so. My riding teacher was not too sure at first, but now she sort of expects it from me.

The horses I ride PREFER the double bridle. They relax and act like they FINALLY understand what the bits are all about. What they just could not figure out before becomes perfectly clear to them with the double bridle. My biggest success was with a very badly trained and very badly conformed QH who I thought would not like the double bridle. That horse settled down, he actually started taking an active interest in what I was trying to teach him, and his vast library of resistant behaviors simply disappeared.

And my riding teacher rates my hands with a snaffle bridle among the best in her big lesson stable. I just do better with the double bridle.

If a rider is tempted to go with harsher and harsher snaffle bits along with tighter nosebands, martingales, draw reins, elevator bits or gag bits for “control”, well all I can think is that they should try using a double bridle if they want their horses to be more obedient to the hand, leg, seat and weight aids. It is, in the end, much more humane for the horse.

[Jealoushe]

Foot pain can also cause a horse to not move as well, even though they are sound, they actually still have pain. Once corrected or shod, it’s like a new horse.