I started Sweets and Libbey in a Little S so I had no issues there. Sweets has used various bits and bitless options. I’ve galloped her in a rope halter. I’ve galloped her in a twisted wire barrel racing bit. I’ve galloped her in the Little S. I’ve galloped her in a plain o-ring snaffle. The head gear really shouldn’t make a difference. The only thing with her is that she detests pressure on her nose so I keep trying all kinds of stuff she’ll be happy with. “Stopping” is never an issue. But she’ll flip her nose up in the air at rein pressure if she doesn’t like the kind of pressure its giving her. She’s back in a bit now because she got really crabby about the Little S.
Monster on the other hand was definitely a process. She was a barrel horse, a cow horse, and an exhibition horse. She came with bit sores and a brain as thick as spancrete. She’d rather throw her nose up in the air and keep on truckin’, and the harsher the bit, the harder she’d fight you. Even trying to go from a walk to a halt would take 25 strides unless you used a 1-rein stop and whipped her in a circle. Being that she has some arthritis issues, that was NOT a good training option for us. ;). Over the course of maybe 1 year or so I got her into the Little S and that’s the ONLY thing she’s ever ridden in now. Or a halter. No bit at all. EVER. She detests bits, and the harsher the bit, the more she’ll fight you and refuse to stop. But it was a process of bringing her down to a kimberwicke to an ordinary snaffle and finally to the Little S.
I was cantering her in the hay field once and she was getting faster and faster. Given her hocks, I didn’t want to 1-rein her, so I had to canter a circle, making the circle slowly smaller and smaller until I could finally get her back to a trot then a halt. We probably made 15 circles before she stopped. She was in an o-ring snaffle, nothing fancy or special about it.
That was when I decided to do the hack. I figured a different type of pressure instead of “harsher” pressure would be the answer. She does much better in the Little S than any type of bit I tried.
My mom’s TB mare had only been ridden in a KK Ultra snaffle, or just an ordinary o-ring but she was a rearer though so I started working her in the Little S and she loved it! I just put it on her one day and went off across the pasture with no problem. You could almost feel the horse breathe out a sigh at not having to carry a bit.
I think that the ability to “stop” is in the brain, not in the bit. I did an emergency stop on Sweets while she was wearing a Myler comfort snaffle. I was riding with a yahoo who supposedly knew the trail quite well (it was brand new to me). He said it was safe to canter in a particular hay field. We took off cantering and when my horse had to jump a rock pile a foot high, concealed with grass until the last possible moment, I pulled her up. Meanwhile the dude was in a hand-gallop heading for the other end. Sweets just stopped on a dime for me without a problem. But if that had been Monster when I first got her, we’d have been going faster and faster until I either did a 1-rein or we went arse over teakettle and landed in a heap. She’d had too many years of bad training and her brain just ignored cues.
Every horse is different.
would you please just call me “that big mouthed old broad”? I’m kinda used to that! :lol::lol::lol:
