Training aids for riders

[Equus_girl]

Thank you all for replies! I had a feeling the topic has a potential of becoming a heated one and I apologize for it.
In a dream world I would have started riding young, had great trainers with classical dressage background and was able to spend 6 months on lunge line without being allowed to touch the reins to develop independent seat and had enough money to afford getting myself a schoolmaster to teach me in a proper way.
I really wish I could do all of the above, but the reality is different. I started riding when I was 24, 4 years ago, in a riding school at hunters barn. Fast forward to now, my trainer whom I love dearly has dressage background, but she is young and its a learning jorney for both of us. When I was getting a horse, I had a dilemma. I could either get a younger horse or an aged schoolmaster. We decided to go with younger horse, as I already have one rehabbing 9 yo with poor prognosis, and cannot afford to send another one to the pasture.
I’ve read every book possible on dressage and do completely agree that gadgets are not the solution, and I need to fix myself first, get an independent seat and hands. But the reality is we cannot really put a 5.5 yo on a lunge line to teach me, there are no schoolmasters at the barn we are at, and he still needs to be ridden and I still need to ride him.

I am afraid of pulling on him and dont hang on the reins and do not have hard hands, on the contrary, I rarely am able to keep constant contact with him mouth (which I know is not a good thing, either). He pulls a lot and reins are slipping, slipping, slipping…:no: Its a struggle to keep them, unless he is just rushing like crazy, and then his head is higher up but the moment you ask him to slow down and start working and not running, the head is on the floor unless you are keep those reins and if you still do, he will just hang on the bit and plot around.
He constantly wants to stretch and if you let him have it his way, his head will be here http://public.fotki.com/equusanya/claudius/img1588.html (if you are lucky)
or here http://public.fotki.com/Equusanya/first/img1859.html
Which is fine (I think) given his age and mine/his combined unperfect balance but he needs to work and I need to learn to hold the damn reins without him pulling. He has enough self carriage to hold it when my trainer rides him, its very forward and she needs to push him too, then he works good, but still hangs on the reins, so I though that something like the above gadget could help me to keep the contact more stable and it will give him some leverage to move around a bit without pulling that hard on me and throwing me off balance…

Sorry for a vent, its a painful subject and I hope you guys will have some suggestions.

[jesterjigger]

As my horse has progressed in her training she went from being above the bit to coming close to finding her self carriage. As she comes closer and closer she tries different things, one was letting me hold her head up. At first I held her head up because I was so thrilled that she was accepting steady contact. But after two lessons I decided I just didn’t have the arm strength, asked my instructor what I should do and we started working on more half halts, and releasing both reins (a little, not throwing them away). Kind of like reaching down to gather up the reins. The first lesson while working on it I had to do quick, small gives with both hands almost constantly for a few strides at a time before she got the message that I wasn’t holding her up. I think that some horses get the same result from releasing just the inside rein, but I do that often with my horse and it obviously didn’t make a difference.

As I worked on giving both with both hands she started to come up and really over her back for the first time. Now she’s much more forward, but responsive to half halts, it’s amazing the difference in her. Fortunately I caught it early and it didn’t take too long to get her to stop leaning on me, your horse might take a bit longer if he’s used to pulling, but just keep “shaking” him off, even if it’s every stride for half a 20 meter circle before you see some result.

It doesn’t sound like Rein Aids would help in your situation, since it sounds like he’s perfectly comfortable with your hands, he just wants more rein and to carry his head lower. I think you would be better off activating his hind end and getting him hotter off your leg and lighter on your hands. I would try lots of walk-trot transitions. I found with my mare that practically releasing with the inside rein through the transition helped her to not brace/pull against me and maintain her self carriage through the transition.

I don’t know if any of what I said makes sense, it’s just what has worked for me and I’m sure I’ve left out other things that helped as well.

[kdow]

I’m not entirely sure how Rein Aids would actually fix a persistant hanger-on-the-bit, since it seems like the elastic would just stretch until it hit the maximum length and then it’d be just like having normal reins again. (I’ve never used the things, but logically that seems like what would happen, based on what I can see of the design.)

Also, like I said, if you put something in between you and the horse to make what you’re doing badly not matter to the horse, how are you ever going to know if you’ve gotten better?

What I could see, with someone who is working on things, would be possibly using the Rein Aids for hacking during the week, sans trainer, to prevent annoying the horse with hard hands. Then for lessons, when there’s someone around to yell at you for doing it wrong, the gadgets come off and you ride normally, and get yelled at a lot. In theory, after a number of lessons, you would end up more comfortable leaving the gadgets off entirely.