Confused (long, but help wanted)

[Mazpup]

Basically I cannot for the life of me get horses on 'the bit' What I'm not asking for is a page by page essay of what 'on the bit' means and how it isn't about head and hands. I KNOW that, but what I cannot do is apply it. I've always been taught get horse straight and bending, going forward off the leg, and technically it should all come by itself - this to be aided by squeezing the outside rein and asking for relaxation of the jaw (so horse is working from inside leg to outside rein). Well, done that, doesn't work,maybe it will with practice but I've been practising for a long time and it hasn't yet. Its not a case of that I or the horse (in most cases) is not working up to this level. I should be able to do this, but I can't.

Normally I try the above method but doesn't seem to work, as when the horse lowers head and accepts contact I'm B*ggered and just seem to lose it. Maybe i either hold the reins too tight or too lose I'm not sure. i don't really know how much contact I should have and I tend to have an overly light contact so I don't know if this contributes.

Yesterday I had a lesson with a different instructor as my usual instructor wasn't there. Completely different ideas to my usual instructor. For a start I was kept getting told to have my hands further and further apart - no exagerration she wanted them shoulder width apart. OK I thought, slightly odd but decided to follow her method as the lesson would have been complete waste if I hadn't (cant explain this would end up being a novel). Her basic idea was to hold my horse through the outside rein ( was riding horse called fern, typical forehand riding school ditz, walks around shoulders miles to the outside and has barely ever been ridden properly in an outline for the past few years [was at my old yard] - i know not easy horse but I have problems with easy horses too) including on circles. i was holding it pretty much as much as I could (I'm tiny and weak) but to me this seemed completely illogical. By applying usual leg aids for a circle, opening the inside rein and holding the outside (and I mean holding! - was told to do this) won't the horse just naturally turn its head out? By the end of the lesson my arms were in agony and I realised all I'd achieved was a horse constantly pulling against the reins and I was holding them the whole time as if I was trying to halt her. Admittedly though she was slightly more inclined to loer her head and take the contact at the end of the lesson. Should I have a stronger hand contact, will this help very forehanded horses or will it just result in pulling? I'm not exactly strong especially arm wise, and i know this shouldn't affect it but, well, I'm just confused.

This doesn't particularly make sense as it isn't a specific qustion but I'm bascially looking for some help on my situation hopefully by someone experienced.

[cvb]

hmm - I think one of the issues here is that for a horse to go "on the bit" it needs to be both physically able, and willing (and know how) to do so.

So some of the things you describe (eg the wide hands) are more about some of the remedial work required in preparation.

A horse needs to be : straight, forward, active

By straight I do NOT mean stiff as a board, leaning on hands etc !

If the horse is accepting the rider's aids, in balance, able to carry themselves, then all the rider has to do is ride "right".

But to get there, we have to be able to sit and ride the 101 million problems, evasions etc that we encounter on the way.

There is no short cut. You have to work on straightness, acceptance and response to the aids, balance, fitness.


What you will find is that you get glimpses - the odd step here and there - as the horse improves.

Bear in mind the rider also needs to be able to ride with a secure and confident/independent seat, apply the appropriate aids clearly and effectively (requires control and co-ordination), and maintain their own balance and self-carriage throughout. So there are some skills there for the rider to work on as well.

This bit... get horse straight and bending, going forward off the leg, and technically it should all come by itself - this to be aided by squeezing the outside rein and asking for relaxation of the jaw (so horse is working from inside leg to outside rein). is basically about getting the horse straight, active, forward and so on. Not about getting the horse "on the bit" directly.

One extra thing to say - when you are "asking" the horse to go on the bit, you are normally asking them to stop resisting and start accepting. Once they accept, you obviously have a different question - now you are asking them to continue to accept, go forward etc. You are right to think that this is slightly different. You still need to be riding the horse, but you are effectively riding a different horse - one that is already straight, forward, in an outline.

Its a bit like if you imagine driving along a rutted road but you can't quite fit the vehicle in the ruts so you are continually having to adjust and manage the direction, power, steering, brakes etc. Then all of a sudden you find a set of ruts that fit - and you still have to work to stay in the ruts, but its a different kind of driving.

This is very much about "feel" so quite difficult to put into words. In my experience, this has tended to mean I have a lighter more elastic contact. But this is not always so. Plus there is a more 'solid' feel - but by solid I do NOT mean heavy, weighted etc. Just more "there".

having waffled on, I do hope its some help :rolleyes:

[galadriel]

Okay; it sounds like you're taking the right approach in the first few steps: keep a light contact with your hands, ask for more energy with your legs.

What else are you doing with your legs? It can really help to do a series of half-halts to bring the horse's weight backwards. He will get lighter in front. When he gets lighter, you should still ask him to keep going forward, and maintain contact, but it should feel like the horse is not leaning on you at all; he is supporting his own head. You're just holding a delicate line between your hands and his mouth. This line should *not* be fixed, though, it should be mobile.

If you're having trouble getting and keeping the feel, then you might want to try circles. If you get the horse's head flexed inward on the circle and flexed at the poll, he should already have the relaxation to go ahead and get on the bit. You can sponge the inside rein so it doesn't feel like your hands are fixed; the horse might be better off with alternate hands or outside hand, depending--just see how he responds.

On the circle, ask for energy with both legs; it can help to open and close the circle. If he does begin to come onto the bit, then--because you are circling--your contact does not need to change very much. It may get a teeny bit lighter, but you'll be doing the same kinds of things with your hands.

If he does begin to come onto the bit, you should be able to feel it pretty clearly, on the circle. The motion in his hind end will become more exaggerated; he'll be lifting his leg higher and moving it further forward. Asking for it first on a circle may help you start to get the feel for how to maintain the contact once you get started.

If you can get it on the circle, then as you leave the circle and straighten out, you can begin by keeping doing approximately what you were doing on the circle; let the horse's body stretch *almost* to straight, but keep a tiny little (invisible) bend. Thinking of it this way can help you keep the horse flexed at the poll, help you use your legs properly (inside leg & outside leg to ask for more energy), and you can gently sponge (inside rein/alternate reins/outside rein) to keep the contact moving.

Does that help at all? Let me know if I need to dig deeper.

[Tootsie4U]

One of your best posts ever cvb, I do think!

QUOTE "when you are "asking" the horse to go on the bit, you are normally asking them to stop resisting and start accepting. Once they accept, you obviously have a different question - now you are asking them to continue to accept, go forward"

Very good!




"On the bit" is so much more than a physical performance. Its a huge culmination of all things - it defines "multi-tasking"!

[Yann]

I'm guessing you're riding school horses? If they aren't used to working in that way then you'll have a devil's job getting them to do so. In my own (limited) experience most horses seem to find it quite difficult to work that way and will resist or evade given half a chance, even one that knows what it's doing often needs continually reminding to maintain it. Knowing the horse and pressing it's particular buttons is an advantage too.

The long and short of it is that you might well be doing everything 100% for your part, but if the horse isn't used to it or won't have it for whatever reason you've got your work cut out.

[Bebe]

First you need a horse that accepts the contact, but also goes to the contact. Eg, if you lengthen your reins, your horse will follow the reins to the end to reassert contact.

To do this with Bebe, I've been asking her to flex on a straight line (neck flexion), once she softens to the flexion I straighten her up and offer her the reins to stretch. Once she got this consistently we did lots of work in walk and trot going from a normal contact to long and stretching, back to normal, down to lnog and stretching. Once she could do this on the straight and on circles, leg yield was introduced to encourage her to take more weight on her inside hind and also as a straightening exercise.

Now that this is pretty much confirmed, I've started to ask her to engage her hindquarters slightly more. To do this I use lots of half halts, circles and turns combined with a soft but definite contact. To ask her to engage I combine half halts with a lift of my stomach muscles (up and in) and with my legs I imagine that I'm asking her to lift her stomach muscles up too. At the moment it's very early days but she is able to offer 5-6 strides of on the bit work at a time now. More often than not I get tired before she does as it takes an awful lot of work on my part (as I'm not used to it either) to co-ordinate everything together. Once some of what I'm doing is ingrained in my muscle memory it will come much easier to both of us.

I've also been doing a bit of pole work to encourage Bebe to bend her hocks a bit more.

Bebe was labelled as a difficult horse by more than one instructor, and at times by myself too. By going right back to the absolute beginning I've made more progress with her in the last 6 weeks than I have in the last year. Whilst to an uneducated eye it might not appear that much has changed, it's very obvious to me when I'm sat on top and when everything goes right. I suppose the difference is that by doing things from the beginning, and doing them as defined by classical dressage masters, it's a gradual process whereas lots of people want an immediate difference which often involves focusing more on the horses head than on what it's hindquarters are doing, which is counter productive, especially if you have a horse like Bebe who didn't understand contact in even its most basic form.

[kedwards]

Well, there are two different issues here. One, is your learning the feel of really having consistent contact (and the aids needed to encourage a horse to accept the contact). The other is the issue of training a horse to do so.

Assuming that your school horse does indeed know how to do this, the first step for you is to go from you relatively passive contact, to a more consistent, but light feel of the reins. I think what your instructor is doing when she tells you to widen your hands, isn't a goal in and of itself, but a step toward achieving it. Once you get the feel of maintaining steady, elastic contact, she'll likely have you move your hands back together. In the meantime, widening your hands creates a sort of "tunnel" for the horse to move through. So, it helps keep the horse straight while you work on keeping that feel. Also, slightly wider hands makes it easier to feel the give and take on both reins while you are learning.