Motormouth mare

[glenatron]

Iris has always been quite busy in her mouth, tending to chomp at the bit, especially when she is anxious. I noticed it particularly when we were working on riding out the last few times and I realised that it wasn't just a manifestation of anxiety, there seemed to be a stereotypical element to it as well. So I set down and asked her not to. Just

Comments

[joycemocha]

Oh yeah, another comment. Stereotypic behavior like that is why some Western riders resort to solid bits with a cricket. It helps horses who would otherwise be tense to relax and salivate (crickets or rollers are usually copper. Old Western riders really like sweet iron and copper because it promotes a wet mouth).

Another thing about giving to the bit rings. I'm realizing that there's a lot of people who don't know about 4-H and showmanship in the competitive scene. Showmanship does a lot of foot control. It's halter competition on a pattern, with all the points going to the handler. Horses have to stand square consistently (or slightly stretched for some breeds). The handler has to be able to cue forehand turns and haunches turns very precisely.as well as sidepass. I think one reason I get so bemused by why so many people consider natural horsemanship groundwork to be a big revelation is because some much of it is similar to what good, consistent, Showmanship training is. I started with that type of work because my first horse was a yearling Shetland.

I enter Showmanship at every show we attend, simply because it's a good way to accustom Mocha to the arena and besides, I kind of like that stuff. But I haven't gotten serious about certain aspects of it until I went to a Wallowa County show last summer and saw a canny old show and rodeo gelding who just automatically took the squaring up position without cueing outside of the arena when his handler stopped to talk to someone. I thought to myself that I wanted Mocha to do that (and it was something we could work on during this past year of rehab and white line disease management). It's been a challenge because horses don't normally want to stand square all the time, but now I'm thinking it's also good for Mocha's bad hip (old hip injury coming back to haunt us on occasion).

[glenatron]

I don't think it's coincidence that the whole "clinic" format was pretty much invented by Ray Hunt teaching 4H students. There is a connection there for sure.

I would love to get to a point where I had a horse who was ready to be straight up in the bridle - I wonder whether that was more common in the south-western tradition because until they horse had a bridle bit they would have typically have been worked in a hackamore rather than experiencing a bit previously.

[joycemocha]

Um, actually the progression is snaffle, hackamore, two-rein, then straight up in the bit. I have a Californio friend who learned it from her uncle who was an old spade bit hand. Perhaps in the 19th century the hands used hackamore to spade but the current hands usually follow that tradition.

The spade bit is not a Southwestern tradition but a buckaroo/California tradition. Think Eastern Oregon/Idaho/Western Montana/Northern Nevada/Northern California. Southwestern riders used grazing bits. The tradition has spread a little bit but the riding style and the spade training really is a Great Basin/California thing. Details, details.

Mike Bridges is a Northern California horseman who teaches a five year progression program for horses going into the spade bit. He also has some really nice videos out there. I recommend his stuff. Benny Guitron also has good stuff.

[joycemocha]

Oh, and the rationale for moving from snaffle to hackamore and starting in the snaffle as opposed to a bosal is to a.) keep the nose soft in the bosal (a HUGE thing), and move to the bosal when the horse is shedding teeth.

[glenatron]

Depends who you ask, though - talking to Jeff Sanders, who is pretty deep in that tradition, he says that the snaffle wasn't something they used as standard. Martin generally concurs as regards the California tradition and observes that the main reason that they snaffle was the first bit his family ( and a people with a lot of young stock ) favoured was because if they wanted to sell horses to the cavalry, they needed to be good in the snaffle. That market practicality has sort of become part of the tradition, but from what I can tell a lot of the explanations as to why the snaffle came before the hackamore is retro-fitting justifications onto decisions. Also of course most competition is built around that progression, so that becomes a way of shaping the way of shaping things as well.

My sources may well be incorrect- I'm a lot further from this stuff than you are of course - but it does make sense that they would use fewer rather than more steps.

[joycemocha]

It's not just about the market but also preserving the softness of the nose. A good hackamore horse still is responsive on the nose, and starting in the snaffle got around some issues on that front.