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Horse Problems Australia, BRIDLING THE HORSE WITH CONTROL John O'Leary Horses inherit psychological problems with the bridling process. They inherit this in a number of ways. I rank them in order of importance hereunder:
Let's deal with them one by one. INCOMPETENT BRIDLING TECHNIQUE I do not apologize for continuing to point out the inadequacy of the teaching of Pony Clubs in Australia. They teach a bridling technique that in some cases, given the greeness of the horse, that actually causes unsuccessful bridling or a mental problem with the event. In fact the system they do teach goes some way to the problems a lot of horses are taught regarding major bridling evasion, followed by mental problems. Pony Club teaches kids to hold the bridle bunched up in the right hand with the arm around the off side of the horses face whilst trying to jam the bit into the horses mouth. If the horse happens to open its mouth and swallow the bit, they quickly change hands so that their right hand is free to place the ear piece over the head. This is a system that has little control and whilst they get away with it a lot of the time, it doesn't assist in-experienced horses, nor does it mean that it is the best system imho. My reason for that comment is found in the statistics above and in the fact that the re-education success mechanism for problem bridling horses is found in a more competent system with more control. Having said that I must say in fairness that Pony Club is limited somewhat as it is mainly dealing with small people who are not high enough to use the system that follows below but this does not excuse them for not teaching the alternatives. So why do "stuff ups" in the bridling process cause varying degrees of problems with the bridling process? Especially in the formative times of the young horses education,
any mistakes made in the bridling process can and do cause varying degrees of
bridling evasion. These can go from mere hiding of the face by the horse,
raising it too high for the handler to reach to the complete a complete mental
condition where the horse becomes impossible to bridle for the mere mortal. Any failed attempt to bridle, ranging from just missing the mouth a few times to the horse flinging its head up and throwing the bridle across the car park, quickly causes regression with bridling. Believe it or not, especially young green horses are so susceptive to mistakes made with the bridling process that is never ceases to amaze me. In no time, they can start to become suspicious, worried, evasive or manic about it. So what is the main cause of all this? Lack of control whilst bridling!! THE HORSEMAN'S' SYSTEM
LOWERING A HORSES HEAD AND NECK
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESS It is a weird thing but horses can and do quickly deteriorate in a psychological way, caused by drama in the bridling process. Mistakes and resultant reaction quickly build in the horses mind that there must be something suspicious about the process. They start to actually believe this and gain an increased paranoia which multiplies by each failed attempt at bridling quickly and smoothly. They become more and more ear shy and start to believe that they have a problem with their ears. The original belief that it was the bridling process that was the problem quickly changes to them being sure it is a problem with their ears. This is what makes the Problem Horse. TYING HORSES UP I regularly get major problem bridling horses through my hands. I have one here today in fact. Some of them can be extremely dangerous, using their heads as a weapon, pulling back violently or even striking with the front leg. One of the control mechanisms that I use to gain more control over horses that are acting up, is to tie them up. (See Tying up of Horses) However, this not only does not work with the psychologically affected horse but it also causes them to associate tying up with bridling problems as well as compounding the failures due to the danger that is presented to the handler. When the owner moves away from the horse because it threatens to or does pull back, as the owner should, more damage is being done to the process in terms of "Learned Evasions" There is a common behavioral link with all horses that suffer bridling paranoia and that is that as you go to place the bridle on the head, they think themselves backwards and upwards into a pull back. This compounds to the bridle being thrown across the yard or damage to the horses mouth. A common occurrence and one that sends such horses quicker along the road to difficulties. So when dealing with a bridling challenged horse, work with it in the round pen or other safe area. THE USE OF RESTRAINTS Very few people would realize or agree that various types of restraints can and do work on horses with bridle evasion problems. In general, I prefer to use techniques involving "advance and retreat" to overcome these problems but time constraints on hard cases does not allow this given the economic pressures put on horse trainers these days. The life of the horse is at stake. Given that there is no greater cure than a successful bridling event, sometimes I find that training horses to give to restraints, (hobbles, collar ropes etc) is the fasted way to fix them. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, that the use of a particular restraint can take the mind off the bridle and it can also cause a horse to give in to the desires of the handler. Often, problem horses such as this have been caused by poor breaking in and a lack of "Give to pressure" being instilled into the horse during that important time. If horses are broken in to give rather than fight, you wouldn't normally even find a bridling problem occurring. ANOTHER If you stand in a yard and have half an hour to spare, you can progress a little with some of these disturbed horses. Place you hand on the forehead of the horse. Lightly and speedily run your hand up the head and straight over the ears to the neck of the horse. You have touched the ears in the preferred direction of the horse. The horse will duck its head but keep rhythmically doing the same move, time after time. In the end, you may even slow the hand bit by bit and dwell upon the ears for the split second. Over time, this can assist the horse in accepting the touch of the ears and you can build upon this.
Successful bridling, every time,
no matter how, sets up a belief in the horses mind that everything is OK and with that belief
comes success in the re-habilitation process.
Go here for the video: http://www.horseproblems.com.au/Video/bridling%20streaming%20media.wmv http://www.horseproblems.com.au/Video/Bridling%20Pt2.wmv
Cheers mail to: horseproblems@horseproblems.com.au
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