Loud Bits Destroy Communication

October 5, 2010 at 9:33 am  ·  Leave a Comment
Categories: Bits, Training
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Training Mythunderstandings: Loud Bits Destroy Communications
By: Ron Meredith
President, Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre

A lot of people think you train horses with equipment. This is one of the biggest MythUnderstandings out there. Try this bit, try that bit. If those don’t work, try a thinner bit or one with a longer shank. If those don’t work, tie that sucker’s head down or crank him in with draw reins.

Most people believe that you should start a horse with a really quiet bit, so-to-speak. Then the further along in the horse’s training you go, the bigger the bit you should automatically put in his mouth because it takes a bigger bit for him to understand more. People think that there’s a direct relationship between what a horse knows and what kind of bit is in his mouth. What actually happens is that the horse gets used to the bigger and bigger bits. Eventually, you need the bigger bit because the horse is used to the beating he gets with it every day.

You can either treat your horse with respect and use a bit that is only a small part of an entire corridor of aids or you can force the horse to accept its daily workout in a severe bit that is louder than your legs and seat. If you force the horse to accept a bit that shouts, you cut all the other communication lines that you could have developed using your body position and legs.

When you get the horse so worried about how much bit is going to hit him and how often, you take his mind off a total shape. And to ride a horse accurately and to the degree that will make him a winner you need to create a total shape for each stride using:

  • an inside leg at the girth,
  • an outside leg a little further back,
  • your weight shifted onto a specific seat bone,
  • an inside rein positioning the head and softening the jaw,
  • an outside rein following the horse’s rhythm,
  • your seat either maintaining the cadence of the gait or half-halting to collect the horse.

You must use a full corridor of pressures that the horse feels and understands as a specific shape. The horse will never understand or feel this shape if you don’t understand it. The optimum communication between two individuals must exclude violence and punishment and must be based on both individuals’ feelings and opinions. When you choose a bit to communicate with the horse, your first choice should be one that can never speak louder than your seat and legs.

When someone is trying to communicate primarily with a loud bit, the horse’s primary effort will be to escape the bridle. And when a horse escapes the bridle the rider often tries to tie his head in position with some device so that he can’t get away from the pressure or ruin the leverage. When the bit is louder than the rider’s seat and legs the horse will never even feel the seat or legs. He will only feel the squeeze in his mouth. Whenever you see a horse fighting the bit, he has lost all feeling for the rest of the aids. It is just like getting your finger slammed in a car door.

Gadgets such as tie downs, chambons, draw reins and head sets are only substitutes for the correct use of seat, leg, and rein aids as a corridor of pressures that shape the horse. These training gadgets are molds, not aids. They force the horse’s body into an evasion rather than showing him the correct shape. They are “breaking” devices, not training devices. Breaking is telling the horse what NOT TO DO; training is telling what TO DO. Control does not come from forcing the horse to assume a shape with gadgets. True control over a horse’s gymnastic abilities comes from developing the driving muscles to drive and the carrying muscles to carry.

When you drive hard enough from the back, the front comes off the ground. That is call “rebalancing.” You can’t get collection or rebalancing using tricks. So many people think that technology is having a trick for each thing rather than having a methodical, logical, systematic, gymnastic conditioning program. You only need tricks and gadgets if your skill is limited.

A lot of people believe they are demonstrating riding skill when their horse will tolerate severe equipment. When you ride with a full corridor of aids, you will never need a big bit or any gadgets to put the horse’s head in a position. However, a bigger bit can be used effectively in some situations. For example, if the horse has been carried through his training with a rider who has used the full corridor of aids and the horse understands the rider’s body language and positions, the bigger bit can be introduced and used for upper level games so that all the rider has to do is whisper with the reins. But even an advanced horse can be ridden effectively with a snaffle if it is ridden on a full corridor of aids.

Horses are so sensitive that they can feel a fly land on their skin. They can feel and understand a mild bit if the rider knows how to use it. But you can’t train in shouts and show in whispers. When you put a bit in the horse’s mouth that multiplies your pressures you lose your corridor of aids. The bit becomes louder than your seat and legs and you lose all effectiveness. All attention is on those fingers slammed in the car door.

You don’t train horses with equipment. You train them by developing a communication system that uses a full corridor of aids. You introduce each new concept in a horse logical way in the smallest, tiniest bites you can reduce it to. You introduce it so it is just one step away from something else you and the horse already successfully communicate about. Remember that rhythm, relaxation and repetition are the cornerstones of good training.

© 1997-2010 Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre. All rights reserved.
Instructor and trainer Ron Meredith has refined his “horse logical” methods for communicating with equines over 40 years as a horse professional. He is president of Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre (147 Saddle Lane, Waverly, WV 26184; 800.679.2603; www.meredithmanor.edu), an ACCET accredited equestrian educational institution.

Leave a Comment

By The Seat Of Your Pants

August 17, 2010 at 11:14 am  ·  1 Comment
Categories: Articles, Classical Riding, The Classical Seat
Tags: , , , , , ,

Communicating By The Seat Of Your Pants
By: Faith Meredith
Director, Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre

Sometimes a super horse appears at the events where our instructors are showing that really catches my eye. He is already such a nice mover or I can see that he has the potential for three good gaits as he progresses. The following year, however, I might not even recognize the same horse much less tag him as a rising star. His flowing gaits have become short and choppy. His soft jaw and relaxed back are now clamped and tight. Instead of moving forward in his training, he has deteriorated. When a setback like this happens, the reason is often that his rider does not have an independent seat.

Developing a truly independent seat is the ultimate goal for a rider. It is not about looking pretty on the horse. It is about being in the right position with the right control over your own body in order to be able to communicate clearly and logically with the horse. If your horse feels the bit move in his mouth, it should be because you are deliberately asking him for a specific shape or a cadence or a degree of collection, not because you have momentarily lost your balance or have become tense somewhere in your body.

Obviously, if you are bouncing around on the horse’s back or grabbing at his mouth in order to keep your balance, that “noise” is what he is going to listen to. If the way you are sitting or moving on his back creates pain or discomfort for the horse, then any communication is gone. Without an independent seat, it is impossible to properly influence the horse’s mind and body in order to train it for any higher level equestrian sport from dressage to eventing or cutting or reining.

The rider must master six distinct skills as she or he develops an independent seat. These skills have to be mastered in order because each builds on the ones previously mastered to create a solid foundation like the trunk of a tree. In fact, we call it the riding tree. With a firm base, the rider can confidently branch out into any higher level equestrian sport. If the rider tries to branch out without that solid trunk beneath her, however, the branch is eventually going to break or maybe the whole tree will topple.

The six skills to be mastered are, in order:

  • relaxation (both physical and mental)
  • balance
  • following the motion of the horse
  • learning to apply the aids
  • learning to coordinate the aids
  • using the aids to influence the horse

It takes many hours of riding on many different types of horses to develop a truly independent seat. Even students in an intensive riding program like the one here at Meredith Manor who have access to a great variety of horses may spend their first year mastering just the first three stages of the riding tree. Every student progresses through each stage at a different pace depending on his or her own physique, temperament, and previous riding experience. Sometimes a student masters one level very quickly and easily only to find herself on a plateau at the next level for weeks or even months. It doesn’t really matter as long as she strives toward that ultimate goal of an independent seat. Once a student achieves that, he or she can move confidently into any riding discipline on any horse.

One of the big problems in the horse industry is the fact that many amateur riders and even some professionsals do not develop the independent seat that they need to correctly influence a horse. When that happens, their limitations end up limiting the horse.

Now every horse has his limits, both physical and mental. But those limitations should be determined by the horse’s conformation or his athletic ability or his temperament, not by the rider’s inability to stay in balance over the horse or to follow the motion or to coordinate the application and timing and degree of a set of aids.

I have seen even professional trainers trying to ride upper level dressage horses who cannot follow the horse’s motion at an extended trot. The minute that happens, they lose communication with the horse. They cannot communicate with the horse and influence one stride and the next and the next because they cannot follow the motion. Their “trunk” is weak. The same thing would happen with a reining horse rider trying to set their horse up for a spin or a rollback. If the rider is not relaxed, balanced and following the horse’s motion as the horse runs down the arena, he will not be able to coordinate the aids at the end of the slide to communicate with the horse and influence the smooth transition to the next movement he wants the horse to perform.

Having a truly independent seat means mastering all six skills at all three gaits on any kind of horse. As you look along the trunk of the riding tree and evaluate your own progress, you may find that you have some of these skills on every horse but you only have others on some horses at some gaits. Don’t be discouraged. It takes a lot of hours in the saddle, a lot of mental concentration, a lot of small corrections of a lot of mistakes, a lot of feedback from your horses and your instructors to develop an independent seat. But what a high when you achieve it! Just keep riding.

© 2001-2010 Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre. All rights reserved.
Faith Meredith has successfully trained and competed through FEI levels of dressage during her more than 30 years as a horse professional. She currently coaches riders in dressage, reining, and eventing in her capacity as the Director of Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre (147 Saddle Lane, Waverly, WV 26184; 800.679.2603; www.meredithmanor.edu), an ACCET accredited equestrian educational institution.

1 Comment

© Copyright 2012 Cavalli Connections. All Rights Reserved.
Entries and comments feeds.