[QUOTE=Lady Eboshi;8391035]
A quote from George Morris’ compendium of “Between Rounds” columns, collected in the book Because Every Round Counts, page 184:
[I]
"Teaching and developing legs on a rider is relatively easy and takes a relatively short time. Developing a seat is much harder and takes much longer, usually about 10 years.
But to develop “educated” hands takes a lifetime at best. To be perfectly honest, most people never acquire educated hands. They don’t have the feel, the patience, or the time.
The great principle of riding is called “give and take,” but, in truth, we should say “take and give.” There is a big difference, and that’s the way it really works. One applies pressure, then releases it, not the other way around. The “take” on a horse’s mouth is when any pressure is applied to do anything; slowing, stopping, bending, turning, or balancing the horse. The “give” is simply the cessation of pressure just when the horse responds, or even before the horse responds.
Just as in life, it is much more difficult for people to give than to take. It is also a self-preservation, defensive reaction for most people to grab a horse’s mouth when they feel at all insecure, which is most of the time."
[/I]
Certainly XC would qualify for most of us as “defensive” riding.
Personally, I think a HUGE amount of horrendous hanging-on takes place under the cover of the German-derived but often poorly taught feeling of “contact.”
The “contact” George describes above demands self-carriage of a horse who willingly yields at jaw and poll to the bit. The old-time cavalry horses wearing doubles and Pelhams were trained to THAT contact, not what we think of today–which too often is a horse bearing with weight or force onto the bit. The contact George is talking about is seldom taught today, and if it is it’s in the hunter world and not “dressage.”
So what’s to do?
A horse over-bitted in a curb, and then allowed to bear, will quickly either “go behind” leg and hand and start quitting, or become a “borer” who runs away with his chin on his chest and his weight on his forehand. Both would quickly eliminate themselves from contention in eventing, or even the hunting field.
I would advocate legal XC bits as: Snaffle, Pelham, Weymouth, Kimberwicke, Gag, or any modern derivative which demonstrates a similar effect. The onus would then be on the rider to prove why their one-of-a-kind riggin’ should be legal if the TD questions it.[/QUOTE]
Most bits fit in that category though. In fact, other than the combination bits (with the nose strap/ hackamore) pretty much all the UL xc bits I’ve seen have been variations on the snaffle or gag.
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