Softens of the Mouth

You often hear riders, trainers, and horse owners talking about the softens in the mouth of a horse, and how important it is to have a soft mouth in a riding horse. I however tell you this:

It is more important for the rider, or trainer to have soft hands than it is for the horse to have a soft mouth. Because, if the horse is soft but the rider has a heavy or strong hand, the horse will also become hard mouthed eventually and learn to lean on the bit or get behind it. A rider that is used to riding with heavy or strong aids, will get on a horse trained by a master and spoil years of training in a matter of minutes if not careful. Softness comes over time, but only if the rider/trainer has and understands lightness to a perfection. Then and only then will the softens of the mouth and of all the aids of the horse be important. Impulsion is also important and it goes hand in hand with the soft hands of the rider. If the legs of the rider are used in excess, or the spur is used in an incorrect manner, the rider runs the risk of 1. Asking for more impulsion than he/she can receive thru his/her hands and 2. Teaching the horse to become dull, or even dead to the leg, especially in naturally lazy horses. In contrast, if the rider’s hands are too strong, the rider runs the risk of 1. Over bending the horse, making him go behind the bit or above it. 2. The rider kills the impulsion because, his legs are not strong enough to send enough impulsion to the strong hands. The use of artificial aids are good for temporary use, but once the horse gets the basic idea of what we want we should dispose of these artificial aids and use our mental powers to teach and train the horse through proper technique and patience. Anyone can put a horse in draw reins and force him to lower his head and produce this way a so called soft horse. But it takes true skill, dedication and patience to learn be able to truly collect a horse thru the natural aids and mental abilities of the thinking rider. To become a Centaur one must learn to think of the horse and act accordingly, the training will then be molded to each individual horse just as an elementary teacher focuses on each child’s learning abilities and disabilities. The soft mouth comes in different ways but it is of no importance if the person who rides the horse does not have light hands. Light hands can correct a light mouth, because they are part of the thinking rider, and the Centaur’s ability to teach and correct through the proper aids. When I hear someone talk about how flexible a horse is in the neck and how extremely soft it is on the bit, I cannot help but wonder if this is true softness or if this so called soft horse has been trained with incorrect methods and is always on the forehand as we see so often with competition dressage and reining horses. Protect the mouth of your horse, learn to be soft with the hands, a task more easy said than done and don’t let anyone ride the horse you are training unless it is under your diligent instruction, so you protect your four legged pupil. This is sometimes hard to do I know but believe me, even an Olympic rider can set you back many months in your training with your horse, I tell you this from personal experience. The softness of the mouth of the horse is only as important as the softness of the hands of the rider.

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