I think this can be true and untrue. If you’re able to get the “head down” so that they can really stretch over their top line then yes, I agree that it helps with getting them to relax. However if by getting the “head down” you’re cramming them into a frame, then no it’s not going to help.
But I’d probably agree more closely with @gertie06 that head carriage is a byproduct of relaxation and not necessarily a way to achieve it…
An example, same horse and person handling it, a few weeks ago, a friend was taking one of our horses and he walked over and asked for head down.
Watch horse expression once he obliged, soft eye, head aiming for halter.
Well, he didn’t have to ask, horse was already looking for the halter and offering softness as a natural response to head down.
Then a bird flew out from under the barn making noise.
Horse became more alert as the halter was being fastened, eye more open, horse still calm and changed to more aware of it’s surroundings than he was with head down, just seconds before:
@Ghazzu, I think people are misunderstanding what we’re saying.
I can put a horse’s head down anywhere at any time, in the saddle or otherwise. I use this for tension relief as in “WTF is that deer?” with their head up and eyes wide. The head down cue begins the process of relaxation.
It’s not for working a horse at all, which isn’t a head down cue at all. That work comes from behind.
Felicitas von-Neumann Cosel does a lot of biomechanical work from the ground with and without SureFoot Pads. (I’ve only seen bits & pieces of the process & I’m sure I’m over-simplifying things) She invites the horse to stretch down & eventually gently guides them into figuring out how to stretch laterally. And ultimately how to stretch for the bit. With the Sure Foot pads especially, many horses seem to practically doze off in her arms.
To me, that’s the big misunderstanding people have about dressage. Including some dressage riders. It isn’t supposed to be “when is she ever gonna give him his head!” like @Bluey’s neighbors were seeing. It is supposed to be a powerful, free-moving horse reaching out into the bit.
I knew someone years ago who built a new barn and was in the process of putting up fencing for the pasture. Posts were in but nothing else. Turned the horses out anyway because “they would see the posts and assume there was a fence” Took them hours to find and catch their horses!
I am hardly cramming a horse into a.frame when it is standing in the aisle.
I laugh, but I once had a dorky OTTB who allowed himself to be contained by nothing. Years ago, we lived on a farm with a very long paved driveway. It was 1 lane wide, lined on with lovely chestnut trees on a grassy strip, which gently spilled into massive open fields on both sides. The fields were maybe 10 acres deep, and over a mile long in either direction. SPOILER ALERT: NO FENCES separated the massive fields from the driveway or the road people roared up at 40mph sometimes.
One fine spring morning, dorky OTTB pulled away from the girl who did the morning chores & started up the drive at a brisk canter towards the road. My now ex husband, who was leaving for work, somehow managed to maneuver past the horse in a Porsche Carrera without spooking him, gunned it a few hundred feet ahead, & turned the car to block the paved portion of the driveway. (Again, blocking a 12’ wide strip in the middle of 3 MILES of open egress) The next 10 seconds lasted an eternity helplessly looking on as dorky OTTB, who had surely never hauled a$$ this fast on the track, closed the last few yards between him & the $100k bone of marital contention. Uh, I mean exquisite piece of German engineering:
“Oh my God, if he tries to jump that $=_#*% car & dents it, I am never going to hear the end of this.”
“What the $@^^ is [ex husband] thinking? That’s never going to work! The horse will just go right around him!!”
[Cue Samuel L Jackson voice] "But the horse didn’t just go right around him… " Dorky OTTB slid to a halt a few feet from the driver side door. Then, either in awe of the $100k machine from Stuttgart or somehow just plain missing that he could simply step 6’ to either side & access several hundred acres of open field with – remember – NO FENCES to stop him, he apparently accepted the car as the universe’s signal his run was over & dutifully wheeled around and jogged back to the barn.
I swear, that horse single-handedly drove me to day drinking! The only reason I can come up with for him not going around is that he thought the long, narrow ribbon of pavement was just another race track. And because race tracks are fenced on either side, surely the driveway was, too.
At a medium size barn with a small school horse string, the school horses were alloted the least desirable paddock, sided on two sides by dense woods. The fencing in the woods was questionable at best, which is why boarder’s horses were never turned out there.
When asked, I would tell people that the school horses were kept in by the honor system; we just sort of “suggested” a fence in the woods and the horses abided by it.
This was mostly the case. I only ever remember one schoolie escape. It helped that the “suggested” fence was very far away from the feed room and hay shed, and like all good schoolies, they knew where their bread was buttered.
I do know of one old mare, not mine, who was not contained by a “suggested” fence (fence poles, brush and big trees) that all other horses respected. She took off from there and galloped through a cemetery, eventually ending up at the side of the road in a small town a couple of miles away, kept there by a man and his daughter who had no experience with horses but somehow got the mare to stand still with just a rope looped around her neck.
My own mare has done the limbo under a fence missing a bottom rail to get to grass. It was pretty scary to arrive at the barn and have no idea where she was, until I checked in the fenced, but not gated, area behind an old garage next to her paddock. She’s also gone under a not-hot electric tape for the same reason.
There was an imported WB of my acquaintance who had apparently not been turned out before he moved to the US.
Even then, he was observed, when turned out in a field that had a dressage arena at one end of it, to always enter the arena at A, play around within the low fence, and exit at A.
Same, the visual 
I had a similar experience WITH a side escape door. Horse pushed me out the door and managed to jump clear of me while he slid out. And I mean slid out - he was so hot and sweaty (and a smaller size Arab) that he squeezed through. Got him caught and finally loaded. On the drive home I was occasionally checking my eyes for a concussion. Wound up with quite a black eye and bruised face including a clear vertical bruise on my nose from the brass fitting on the nose band. Had PTSD for years when ever I’d be inside a trailer.
Even with ones I know, trailer loading is way down on my list of “favorite things to do.” My heart always beats a little faster, and I can’t wait to get out and latch the door. Ugh!
A long time ago I was considering moving my horse to a pasture situation. Unfortunately, the towing vehicle I had lined up wasn’t available. My dad (god bless him) offers to haul the horse trailer with horse inside with his Karmann Ghia! It’s basically a Volkswagon Beetle with a sportier body! He thought he could do it because he had worked on the engine and made it “more powerful” Nevermind that he didn’t have a brake controller and the destination was 3 hours away. I just told him that it wouldn’t work out because your car would be sitting there with the front wheels off the ground once you hooked up the trailer. 
A poster on Rural Heritage had a neighbor who was killed when he somehow got trapped on a trailer with a bull. Ever since reading that I became extra cautious about loading & unloading.
Eta: I’ve been poking around on the BLM mustang auction page. They want a 3-horse slant with partitions removed at minimum for picking up your new mustang. And strong preference for a 6 horse or very long stock trailer.
That’s very true and must have a swing gate, no ramps allowed. They must have changed the policy because they used to allow two horse trailers.
It looks like they may still allow a two horse on “a case-by-case basis”.
I was taught to always close the jockey door on the trailer every time I used it just in case the horse decided that it was a quick way to exit. Nobody taught me to keep the jockey door closed when the horse was off the trailer but I learnt about that when my horse tried to get back on the tailer through it.
My bad for a sloppy tie-up, fortunately I got to her when she had one leg and her head in, I don’t know how far she would have gone if I hadn’t managed to grab the lead rope.
How did they even get all those things attached at once!??
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You may also receive promotional emails from The Chronicle of the Horse. You can opt out at any time.
For Customers
Company
Terms of Use
