Views on a De Gogue vs Draw reins?

[eishi]

I know draw reins are a little controversial on here but before anyone says anything this was suggested by accredited BE trainer and all supervised!

Recently acquired (well 6 months ago!) and 15.2 welsh/TB mare who is 8. She had done very little before she came to us except breed a foal. Over last few months she's done alot of hacking, schooling and outings and recently went DC at Aston Intro. She is a really amenable and talented little horse but we are having serious canter problems.

She is conformationally quite short in the neck so we have been working to get her to work long and low and her walk/trot work is now very good but her trot/canter transitions are where the trouble starts!

She skips/changes leg/goes disunited and generally starts throwing in a few bucks and really shortening up! She's had teeth/back/vet/saddle/physio all in last month or two and I don't think its a pain thing as she will jump a course of SJ in canter without changing or skipping! If I let her canter round with her neck inverted and camel like she wont change and is fine, but as soon as I ask for some roundness or bend thats it, I definitely think it's an evasion thing!

Trainer thought she seems to have a problem when I asked her to round in canter transition and suggested trying her in a de gogue or loose draw reins to give her the right idea!

So has anyone experienced anything similar? and what would your course of action be?
Thanks.

 

[xspiralx]

I used to have a horse who couldn't canter properly - he'd been abused so freaked out at any contact and like your mare went disunited and leaped about all over the place.

For a short time I used draw reins with him, very loosely, so they would only come into play when he threw his head up - but the crutch of having them there really helped him mentally and it only took a few sessions before he calmed down and it broke the habit of him getting really tense and freaking out about it all. Didn't need them again at all after that, he worked really nicely.

So that would be my recommendation

 

[ofcourseyoucan]

i would suggest you do some lunging work in trot and canter and try to get her to self balance. loose side reins or a running rein or bungee may help.. slightly nicer than draw reins, and would be better for the horse to learn to self carry and stay on same lead on the lunge before you add the rider into the equation. good luck. sounds like you are 3 parts there.

 

[eishi]

xspiralx that was the sort of thing I was hoping might work with the draw reins, just give her the push in the right direction for a short amount of time!

ofcourseyoucan- I think that was what trainer was trying to get at with the lunging with a de gogue but have to say I don't have much experience with bungees, are they a similar set up?