"Also, by
holding a horse that hasn't been taught vertical flexion and driving him up
into the bit you will just compress his movement and not achieve true lifting
of the spine and may even cause the horse to lean or get heavy on the
bit"
This is exactly what he does when I attempt to fix the problem by driving him
forward. Understand, I'm not trying to teach him a new way to carry his
head. I'm attempting to help him strengthen the muscles. Natural is a good
thing when your horse has a good head set to begin with. But 20 something
years of bad riders has taken away his natural set, and the muscles needed have
disappeared due to lack of use. The more I work him with collecting and
holding his head proper, slowly I see those muscles return. As a result he
is already working better.
In my experience, draw reins don't teach anything. When
a horse figures out the draw reins are off, his head will go back to
where it was before. Believe me it dosn't take long for them to figure out
when they are in draw reins and when they aren't. I have also seen horses
in draw reins that may have the desired "headset" but are behind the bit
and still traveling with a hollowed out back.
>From my
understanding of the "headsetting" post you are trying to get vertical
flexion. Driving a horse from back to front is ideal BUT until you get a
horse soft in the face and giving to the bit (vertical flexion) you can
drive from the hindend and still not get the back lifted. Also, by
holding a horse that hasn't been taught vertical flexion and driving him up
into the bit you will just compress his movement and not achieve true
lifting of the spine and may even cause the horse to lean or get heavy on
the bit.
When training a horse you teach from front to back
then ride from back to front. In essence this means first you teach
lateral flexion, then vertical, then you gain control of the shoulders,then
the ribcage(back) and finally the hindquarters. Until each bodypart is
perfected in sequence you will find "holes" in the bodypart that is next in
the sequence. The more you skip or gloss over the basic building blocks
the larger your holes in your training will be, eventually causing major
problems.
My horse Reno is a prime example of this. He is
an ex-dressage horse that was trained from the back to front. after 5
years of this he ended up being very heavy on the bit, became extemely
agitated with any leg cues and constantly dropped his shoulder. So he was
sold to me as a trail horse (with a major attitude unbeknownst to me at
the time) By starting from ground one and teaching him from front to
back he is slowly getting over his "problems". After a year we are only up
to shoulder control but he is solid in lateral and vertical flexion, very
soft in the bridle and is accepting of leg cues without a major
hissy fit. We are just now adressing shoulder control which will put an
end to the dropped shoulder habit.
My whole point being, first
get your horse soft and supple to lateral flexion before asking for
vertical
flexion (headsetting).
Regards, Penny
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