Re: RC: vosal

["Glenda R. Snodgrass" <grs@TheNetEffect.com>]

> How much (if any) contact to you keep w/ vosal.  My husband used the vosal
> (added sheepskin cover to nose band) and mare starting putting nose in the
> air badly.  She was also very extremely hard to rate w/ it. 

I asked a lot of these same questions recently as I started my horse in a
vosal, after nearly 2 years in a D-ring snaffle.  I was told to keep no
contact on the vosal at all -- very loose swinging rein -- when going down
the trail.  Contact occurs only if I need it to give him a stronger "slow
down" or "stop" message, or when I turn him with a direct rein.  Mostly I
neckrein and keep a loose rein and he does great.  

I understand that some horses will get high-headed with a vosal even with
no contact -- they are sensitive on the nose, I guess, and the vosal
bothers them just being there. Fortunately that wasn't a problem with
Lakota at all.  In fact, I think he's happier in the vosal than he was in
the snaffle bit.

Ask me after Million Pines next week how he does in it at a ride. <BG>

Glenda & Lakota
Mobile, AL
AERC # M18819 & H27310
SE Region


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