Teaching a horse to soften at the mouth? Help please?

[Littlelegs]

Sorry, did misunderstand, I thought you meant start as in for initial breaking in & then its not as important. But I do think the ops horse is still at the stage where long & low needs to be improved. No experience of ks, but with a stargazer I find it best to only ever work long & low until the back has strengthened enough to consider asking for a more usual contact. Even if I ride practically on the buckle I find its more successful than risking head lifting & throwing. That way when I do begin to work in a regular contact star gazing is no longer a comfortable option. I suppose really it comes down to how we read the op. I do think a lot of schooling issues go back to the basic principles in that vid not being adhered to in the first place when the horse was started.

 

[KatB]

The "sponge squeezing" and "rein vibrating" action does nothing but annoy the horse enough that it drops behind the bridle to avoid it...

To get a horse working correctly, it is all about teaching it to be soft from it's poll to it's tail, and working corrctly over it's back. You want the horse to learn to follow the bit, and want to "take" the contact forward. This is done by learning how to ride with a consistant and elastic contact first of all, and then teaching the horse how to be confident and soft over it's topline to take confidence from the contact.

The amount of people I see who believe they are being "soft" by "dropping" the contact is unreal, and actually all you are doing is irritating the horse by not giving it clear signals, and so teaching it to sit behind the bit.

You need to think of the straight line from your elbow to your horses bit, and make sure your elbows stay soft for you to be able to take a level and consistant contact, with any movement coming from your ELBOWS and not your hands/wrists.

Best thing is to find a good flatwork instructor who will help you with how you let the the horse carry you, and work from there. It's only recently I have found one, and he has made a HUGE difference to my riding, even though I was "experienced" before

Good luck!

 

[sandi_84]

OP..we don't need to be told to play nice, we are adults debating a point??

Urm sorry I just don't want to be the cause of an argument Was trying to not have this turn into a free for all mud slinging (not that it has) but was worried for a bit there that it might turn a bit nasty thats all.