I just started working with a new horse a little while ago. She’s done western hunt seat (the barn does western and English and hunt seat) and her owner uses what she calls a correction bit. To me it looks like an uxeter kimberwick with a really high port. She has always ridden this horse with this bit because that’s the bit the horse came with.
What is a correction bit supposed to correct? I’d rather be using something like a French link or single-jointed snaffle, but it’s not my horse.
So you aren’t confused, a correctional doesn’t correct anothing or solve your riding problems. It is a western bit that uses poll pressure and pallette pressure. It’s for a horse who has been trained and ridden first in a smooth snaffle, then in a broken snaffle with short shanks, then a small port with short shanks (a short shank correction)…I will often use it without a curb strap to start so there is more give and the horse isn’t scared.
Basically it is a bit for a horse that has been trained with a rider who has refined their aids.
After riding in nothing but snaffles for decades I have a very responsive light mouth mare who wears a correction bit. It is the only thing she is happy in and no longer overflexes and bolts down hills.
In reining, you move on to a correction bit when your horse is very solid and you are only working with one hand on drapey reins.
The theory is, you can sit up, put a little inside leg, support with the outside one, release the inside one as you pick the reins a bit more and barely move your hand a couple inches and the bit signals to the horse to pick it’s shoulder up and move from behind into the lope on that lead with your release.
It is a bit for finished horses, to make them handle like a cadillac, not a mack truck.
For regular riding, I prefer the newer curb bits with smaller shanks and more tongue relief than the smaller ports older bits had.
Many young horses seem to like those bits when moved on to a curb.
In reality, you have to try different bits and let the horse tell you what feels best for that horse.
[QUOTE=Bluey;8943416]
In reining, you move on to a correction bit when your horse is very solid and you are only working with one hand on drapey reins.
The theory is, you can sit up, put a little inside leg, support with the outside one, release the inside one as you pick the reins a bit more and barely move your hand a couple inches and the bit signals to the horse to pick it’s shoulder up and move from behind into the lope on that lead with your release.
It is a bit for finished horses, to make them handle like a cadillac, not a mack truck.
For regular riding, I prefer the newer curb bits with smaller shanks and more tongue relief than the smaller ports older bits had.
Many young horses seem to like those bits when moved on to a curb.
In reality, you have to try different bits and let the horse tell you what feels best for that horse.[/QUOTE]
Thank you for this explanation. I’m not the OP but I bought my horse from a trainer that was using a correction bit with him for Western things. I’m a HJ rider and moved him to a D-ring snaffle and he’s been very happy in it. But it’s good to know more about what he’s used.
[QUOTE=Foxglove6;8945162]
Thank you for this explanation. I’m not the OP but I bought my horse from a trainer that was using a correction bit with him for Western things. I’m a HJ rider and moved him to a D-ring snaffle and he’s been very happy in it. But it’s good to know more about what he’s used.[/QUOTE]
One trouble with western performance training, every trainer does it their way, so you never know exactly what you will find, which kind of “buttons” have been installed, so you have to try different ways to ask a horse, until you find what the horse knows.
At least in dressage you can get on a horse most anyone trained and they should all respond to the same correct aids.
Not so in western riding, the information is out there, but it is not consistent and some times is contradictory, no standard to it when it comes to training and many that train are doing so by the seat of their pants, not following any one system.
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