Sawing at horse's mouth?

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horsegirl

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I have recently witnessed a couple of people riding and the whole time they were sawing at the horse's mouth with the reins and for one of them this was at least 6 inches movement, the horses head was swinging from side to side. Is this right? What's the point?
 
Misguided belief that it's how you get a horse 'on the bit'.
Seen it far too many times myself!
 
ditto what B_G said. Makes me crings
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its very wrong!! i they think that by doing that thy will bring the horses head in, which they might (but the horse wont be happy with that!) and he wont be working from behind into a contact. plus his muscles with be developed wrong. and they'll make the horses mouth sore and 'hard', and very fed up i should imagine! xxx
 
its because they have lost their temper and the horse is not listening.
iv done it on the odd occassion when somethings bolted but i dont like to see it its horrible actually if you cant stop your horse without doing that you need to work on it with your horse!! haha
my mare is bloody strong little 15.2 little brit reminded me of mine as she went round badminton...(if only) just fast i have to give her a good tug sometimes as i do xc but no i dont saw and wouldnt unless its an emergency i guess.
could get a mixedreaction on this one
 
I could understand if it was bolting, I would do it too if the horse had run off but this is in trot in a school ALL THE TIME!

I thought it couldn't be right. Poor horseys.
 
I may have misunderstood your description but it sounds as if it could be them asking the horse to flex from side to side in it's head and neck although you don't ask for that by sawing.... Plenty of people do this when schooling and a lot of sjers do it as they enter the ring.
 
Ah, see this shouldn;t (and doesn') look awful. I think you'll just have to make yourself believe that they were just having a bad day unfortunately....
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We have one like that! believe there horse looks "well nice" (there chavvy) in an outline, so they chuck on bungee reins and hack at his mouth then take pictures just after this is done!

Allthough they accused lydia (member on here and my best friend) or abusing her horse when she just held a stick in each hand when her horse refused over and over again.

I really hate people like that you can see there horse is not in an outline as the horse has no implusion where it is being hacked about, I would rather have my horse sticks its nose in the air than that!
 
when i was younger and less experienced i used to think as long as his nose was in that was fine. now im more clever and i know that a horse has to be working over his back and hindquarters as well, otherwise without tack he will look like a sway backed old hossie! it makes me cringe some of the stuff i used to do xxxx
 
Fast way to create a neck bend that ignorant people mistake for "being in an outline", "being on the bit" or "working correctly" - whichever term they care to use.

Either way its rubbish. The neck is always broken at the incorrect vertebra, the horse is evading the contact, not taking it and 99% of the time, the back end might as well be in another county.
 
Arrgh! Yes I've ridden one like that too MH - awful thing to ride! No matter how sensitive I was, even went to washing-line reins and it STILL did it!!
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I was at HOYS last year and a Belgian(?) show-jumper, on a beautiful grey was sawing so much that he was bringing the horse's nose right round to touch his toe, and then back the other way to touch his left toe. I really felt so sorry for the horse and would have loved to have said something - but who am I to interfere and question someone else's riding?!!!! He would have probably told me to mind my own business and his groom would have set upon me, so I kept my mouth shut!!!!
 
I hope I don't ride like this
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........ but I do squeeze each (or sometimes only one) in turn to get my horse to soften at the poll.
I do this with my leg on and him moving forward well. As soon as he softens and brings his nose in a little I stop. This is the only way I can get him to bring his head down and soften. He is an exracer, and very heavy in the hand, he really takes up a contact!
He works well from behind, and will work long and low, but he won't flex from the poll unless I do this. Am I wrong to do this?
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Before you all ask, he has had his teeth and back etc done- he is fit as a fiddle
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It is no worse than people that go to stronger and stronger bits - ruins the horse, and is nothing more than terrible riding.
 
That's the way I've always been taught...little squeezes on the reins combined with lots of leg. I think there's a massive difference between that and just sawing and their mouth!
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That sounds more like he was hyper flexing the horse rather than sawing - a totally different thing. Still don't like seeing it though.
 
[ QUOTE ]
I was at HOYS last year and a Belgian(?) show-jumper, on a beautiful grey was sawing so much that he was bringing the horse's nose right round to touch his toe, and then back the other way to touch his left toe. I really felt so sorry for the horse and would have loved to have said something

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a suppling exercise, to get the horse to stretch and loosen up the muscles in the neck. Many many showjumpers do it, and I've done it myself - its nothing to do with sawing.
 
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