On The Bit
By Simon Battram
From the teaching that I have done it is very apparent to me that the
knowledge appears to stop at the head.
What I mean by this is the rider believes that as long as he has the
horses head in, ie the nose somewhere under the ears then the result has
been achieved. It does not seem to matter that the nose has been pulled
tight to the neck, or that the poll has dropped giving the high point of the
neck some way back from the ears.
A rounded neck is not a round outline.Terminology is very important. To
merely state that you have your horse in an outline is not sufficient,
although the phrase is used all too often. The word outline describes the
topline of the horse, ie the shape that the horse is making from the poll to
the tail. If the horse was going around with its head and neck quite high it
would still have an outline, just an incorrect one.
All that is to be expected in the early stages of the horses training is
that the horse goes in a rounded outline. This simply means that the overall
shape of the topline of the horse gives a rounded expression.
The picture that I wish to see from the young or inexperienced horse is of a
horse that is stretching the topline out and forward to the contact, at no
point looking restricted through its body. The horses nose should be
slightly in front of the vertical line, never behind the vertical in any
circumstances. We wish at some stage to be able to apply eg. a half halt, if
the young horse has already learned to shorten the neck, come behind the
vertical or contract its body how will we ever ride the horse through.
Sometimes it is better to think about pushing the ears out over the nose
rather than bringing the nose in underneath the ears.
At this point we should have the horse with an elongated topline, showing a
rounded frame with no sign of restrictions or contraction.
Is this on the bit? Definitely not. There is so much more to it.
For the horse to be on the bit it should have all of the following:
1. A round outline
2. Suppleness
3. Straightness
4. Activity
5. Acceptance of the riders aids
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Judy
http://icehorses.net
http://clickryder.com
