Exercises to encourage a horse to raise his head??

[spotty_pony]

Question in title.

My ISH tends to overbend and go behind the bit so I was wondering if there were any exercise which would encourage him to raise his head? Teeth, back, tack etc have all been checked and are fine. We have discovered he has a very big tongue, and the mouthpiece of his bit is too big for his mouth so after a long discussion at our local tack shop we decided to change his bit to a Neue Schule Universal which should help the overbending problem a bit anyway. Haven't used it yet, but I know I will probably have to do some work to encourage him to raise his head anyway as over bending as become a bit of a habit for him.

Any ideas much appreciated.

 

[gill84]

One of mine used to that. We found riding with the hands slightly higher and about 2ft apart then pushing her on up into the contact worked

 

[swampdonkey]

my instructor always says to me to lower the head widen and lower your hands and to raise the head keep hands together and higher. Not sure if this helps you've probably tried this already.

 

[Tnavas]

my instructor always says to me to lower the head widen and lower your hands and to raise the head keep hands together and higher. Not sure if this helps you've probably tried this already.

Low wide hands DO NOT lower the head - they encourage the horse behind the bit.

The horse needs to be driven strongly forward, lots and lots of forward transitions, to rebalance him. Overbending is one of the hardest habit to correct. A very light, thinnish bit with loose rings would be the best.

 

[sbloom]

You're looking at a whole "way of going" issue here, the downside of training deep is that it is very hard to undo if the horse learns to use it as an evasion or standard way of going. You need to work on the horse's balance and connection and I'd recommend a good instructor who really knows how to work a horse up and out, not down and round. Hard to come by these days!