Re: kimberwicks

["Tracey" <tracey@tbt.co.za>]

Dana wrote:

 

 

>>I have been considering trying a KW on my mare and I'd like your opinion.  She is gaited and was trained on a very mild port grazing curb.  When I got her I tried all sorts of snaffles including Mylers and she hates them all.  She seems happiest in the curb, but I don't like the curb with shanks as I like to direct rein.  So I was thinking about trying the mild port KW as a sort of compromise between us, she still has her unbroken mouth and I have less leverage on the shank side.<<

I'm not 100% convinced that the KW gives "less leverage" than a shank, although I will confess that I'm thinking of the other English curbs and not Western shank bits, so I could be way, way wrong.

Can you figure out WHY she doesn't like the snaffle and prefers the curb?  I reschooled a horse once and was told the same thing by his owner ("he hates snaffles and will only accept the curb").  In fact, he didn't have a choice : he was too "tied down" in the curb to object.  When I put him into the KK and started working with him on a long rein, using leg and body cues, he was fine.  It just took time to reschool him away from being ridden off of his mouth to being ridden off of body cues.

And no, I'm not being a "snaffle purist" (I'll answer that post later), just suggesting that sometimes what we regard as "acceptance of the bit" is not so much because the horse "likes" it, as because he has little choice other than to accept it.

There are so many different types of snaffles, with various shapes and thicknesses, that it's not impossible to find one which suits any horse's mouth.  Whether he will be obdient in the snaffle depends on his training, not on how much he likes it.

>>Although she is what some would consider hot, I suppose, she really takes very little contact in her mouth.

Is she evading the bit, or is she well-schooled enough that she requires very little by way of contact?

>>So am I correct in thinking that a low port KW would 'feel' similar to the horse as a low port grazing bit, leverage aside?  It would seem to me that the KW would be milder (which is what I am looking for), plus be better for lateral cues.  What'cha think?

I don't know what a grazing bit is, so I can't really answer that question.   Perhaps one of the others on the list can.  Sorry!

 

Tracey