Keith_Beef
Novice equestrian, accomplished equichetrian
On Sunday morning, I rode a particular horse for the first time. This gelding has been at the yard for a while, maybe six months, but for some reason or another he's never been allocated to me for a lesson.
I went into his stable to tack him up: well mannered, stood still for brushing, lifted his hooves nicely, but when I went to put the pad and saddle on his back, he started chomping at the air near me, but without making any real attempt to bite me. So I thought that this was going to be a sod of a horse to get tacked up. Once the saddle was on, and the girth buckled up enough to hold it in place (but still leaving one hole to be pulled up before mounting), I got the bridle off the loop on the wall where I'd hung it. I slipped the loop of the reins over his head and was just about to put my arm over his poll, when he pushed his head forwards, found the bit with his lips and took it into his mouth. I think that if his ears had been down, the headpiece would have fallen into place without my help. It was as if he'd put on the bridle himself.
Then he started to really chomp and chew on the bit, and continued doing this all the time I was leading him out to middle of the arena to take up the last hole on the girth and then mount up.
The instructor tells me that this might be his way of dealing with stress (like a human chewing gum) or that he might have something uncomfortable around his teeth and gets some relief from chewing like this.
For the whole of the morning lesson, and again in the afternoon doing some dressage and jumping, he was calm, obedient, very easy, except for sometimes being a bit slow or dropping back to trot from canter if I didn't remind him what he was supposed to be doing
Any ideas about the bit-chomping, what could cause it, in anything I need to think about when riding a horse that has this habit?
I went into his stable to tack him up: well mannered, stood still for brushing, lifted his hooves nicely, but when I went to put the pad and saddle on his back, he started chomping at the air near me, but without making any real attempt to bite me. So I thought that this was going to be a sod of a horse to get tacked up. Once the saddle was on, and the girth buckled up enough to hold it in place (but still leaving one hole to be pulled up before mounting), I got the bridle off the loop on the wall where I'd hung it. I slipped the loop of the reins over his head and was just about to put my arm over his poll, when he pushed his head forwards, found the bit with his lips and took it into his mouth. I think that if his ears had been down, the headpiece would have fallen into place without my help. It was as if he'd put on the bridle himself.
Then he started to really chomp and chew on the bit, and continued doing this all the time I was leading him out to middle of the arena to take up the last hole on the girth and then mount up.
The instructor tells me that this might be his way of dealing with stress (like a human chewing gum) or that he might have something uncomfortable around his teeth and gets some relief from chewing like this.
For the whole of the morning lesson, and again in the afternoon doing some dressage and jumping, he was calm, obedient, very easy, except for sometimes being a bit slow or dropping back to trot from canter if I didn't remind him what he was supposed to be doing
Any ideas about the bit-chomping, what could cause it, in anything I need to think about when riding a horse that has this habit?
