She
is trying to train through pain. Telling the horse, "If you
don't keep your head down I will hurt your nose." Horses don't
learn through pain in fact when they are in pain they check out
mentally.
She is trying to train the outside of the horse through mechanical
gimmicks. Such a typical human, tool user mentality that it is hard
for many people to see any other way. You can't train the outside
of the horse, you can only train the inside mentally through meaningful
communication.
She is actually treating the symptom rather than the problem. Let's
find out why he is raising his head and teach him to carry himself
in better balance rather than just wiring his head down and forcing
it upon him. The wire noseband is a band aid quick fix that really
doesn't work in the long run if you want to have any kind of meaningful
mutual relationship with your horse.
Lateral flexion is the key to vertical flexion. If she can help
him understand the reward in giving to the bit laterally then he
will give to the bit vertically and keep his head down because it
is a good idea not because it is forced upon him. He is completely
capable, on his own, to carry his head anywhere you want it. It's
all in knowing how to ask him. He'll be glad to comply if he is
given a chance to understand.
Watch this horse run loose in the pasture. The horse is always in
a perfect state of balance on his own, so whenever we are with the
horse we must approach him in a state of balance ourselves. If the
rider is also in a perfect state of balance then horse and rider
together can achieve an even more beautiful state of balance.
The tie down will not help him achieve balance, in fact it will
greatly impede his own natural state of balance. "For what
a horse does under constraint...he does without understanding."
-- this, a quote from First Century Greek master horseman, Xenophon,
in his book “The Art of Horsemanship.”
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