RE: bits & contact

["Tamara Woodcock" <nis75p06@mindspring.com>]

I was browsing in a tack store recently and came across the Myler "Better
Bit" booklet, and one concept in it struck me as very much not what most of
us, well at least me, think of.  The booklet suggested that, when meeting
resistance in the horse, go to a more subtle bit.  I consider myself to be
an adequate rider and I have good hands, but thinking of a bit in terms of
subtlety had never occurred to me.  The snaffle is a very direct bit, which
I guess is why it's good for youngsters who need clear and uncluttered
signals.

Roo was ridden exclusively in draw reins when I got him and became
completely unglued without serious heavy contact.  He had that nice English
Pleasure "frame" (on the vertical, almost inverted neck, flat back, lots of
knee action)  He didn't know that horses could move forward without pushing
on a bit.  Working him in a low port kimberwick helped (subtler signals than
the snaffle).  Had to move to a French link snaffle because we need to work
on lateral stuff.

We still have problems with a good free walk (oddly enough I can get him to
go long and low at a trot), but every now and then he realizes that it's
okay to go low, and it is so cool to feel the increase in stride and
impulsion!

-Tamara
"I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of
pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you
that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmic primordial atomic
globule. Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable. I
can't help it. I was born sneering."
http://www.mindspring.com/~nis75p06/
AOL Instant Messenger: Conthesis
ICQ: 49294214