From: deblev@nimoy.ipac.caltech.edu (Debbie Levine)
Newsgroups: rec.equestrian
Subject: Re: dressage bits
Date: 24 Nov 1992 01:41:18 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology
NNTP-Posting-Host: nimoy.ipac.caltech.edu

In article <1992Nov19.225742.7339@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> tracy@scoraz.resp-sci.arizona.edu (Tracy Scheinkman) writes:
>[...]	So getting back to the double bridle, it is all of this
>combined backround which leads me to my current way of thinking.  Having
>seen people doing such a beautiful job of riding with just a
>snaffle I can't help but think, if the double bridle is something 
>we don't need why use it? 

Since I happen to have "Riding Towards the Light" with me today
(Poor all of you!) I will quote what Paul Belasik says about
snaffles and curbs and differences in approach!

The following is fairly heavily edited from a chapter in which the
author is discussing a visit to Nuno Oliveria's school in Portugal.

  "As I become immersed in observing and riding thse horses my
  skepticism changes to wonder.  Some beautiful work is being
  carried out in an entirely different manner.  When I say 
  different, I mean different, not only in terms of style but in
  the actual structure of the training. 
  [...]
  I am forced to reconcile the impossible. [...] How will I accomodate 
  the two schools of thought concerning 'riding in lightness' on a slack
  rein, and 'riding in lightness' on a taut, elastic rein?

  There is at least one key elemental difference in the training of the 
  youngest dressage horses in the Portugese school and thaose of the
  Austro-Hungarian or better German schools which are quite similar.
  The youngest horses in Portugal are very quickly fitted with a full
  bridle and then ridden on a semi-slack or loose rein.  The youngest 
  horses of more central Europe are never fitted early with a full bridle
  and are always ridden in a snaffle with taut reins.  This simple point
  regarding equipment exposes an underlying paradox.  However, the
  imagined paradoxes may not be paradoxes after all.

  When the young horse is fitted with a full bridle it is reluctant to
  lean into it.  The danger here is that the youngster may fear the
  bit and stay behind it. But the problem with being behind the
  bit is not only the visual picture that we see, where the horse's 
  nose is pointed towards its chest and its face is behind the 
  perpendicular drawn to the ground -- this is just an outward
  manifestation.  The important issue or danger is that the horse
  loses the connection from the rider's hand and leg to the bit
  and thence its legs. [...]
  A very serious mistake of observation can be to assume that
  because the reins are semi-slack the horse is not up into the
  bridle. Unless one has truly felt horses that are behind, you
  can make this mistake quite easily. [...]
  One has to pay attention to the horse's back and the elusive quality
  of roundness.  True exponents of the Portugese style are always
  checking their young horses to see that they come energetically
  forward from the rider's legs and they are not leaning on the 
  bridle but will hold themselves in balance. [...]

  When a horse is trained in the snaffle in the manner of the 
  Austro-Hungarian school or the better German schools, the trainers
  are so concerned with forward riding that some concesssions are made
  in the beginning in terms of sacrificing lightness.  [...]
  These trainers will avoid hollowness at all costs, hence the mild
  snaffle and even some indulgent leaning by the young horse. [...]
  In this school of riding collection will develop from gradually
  mastering control over the forward impulse [...]

  However, there is a large danger in this method of training.  If a 
  horse is allowed to lean on a mild snaffle or stretch into
  it while driving forward for too long, it can induce too much
  thrusting power and no carrying power. [...]
  The rider will have to pull harshly on the reins to get the horse
  to tip its centre of balance towards the rear.  The irony is
  that the rider, in an effort to avoid the disuniting factor 
  caused by hollowness, creates a different paralysing stiffness in the 
  back that is equally troublesome.

  The mistake of observation here is to think that the mild bit is
  equal to mild riding or lightness in the hand.  It may very
  well be that the horse is pulling much harder and causing much
  more damage to its mouth in the incorrectly used snaffle than
  it would in a more severe bit or a correctly used full bridle.

  To make the patent statement that the full bridle is more severe
  than the snaffle seems myopic.  Do I mean it is more severe
  hanging on the wall? [...]
  the next question must be, in whose hands?[...]

  In an effort to seek some reconcilliation in the old semantics
  I am in a funny place.  The closer one gets to the world of action
  the fewer differences there seem to be among the best riders.
  Riding in lightness seems to be more universal and more true. [...]

  Perhaps there is an element of pragmatism in the choice of these
  bits.  In the rounder breeds, like the Andalusians, Lusitanos and
  Lipizzaners there is less worry about hollowness.  Therefore the
  full bridle is less ominous.  The longer, flatter horses of central
  Europe have greater facility in the extended paces.  With their
  great reach, they are more susceptible to hollowness
  in the back, hence perhaps the popularity of the snaffle.
  Whatever the historical reasons for this equipment it seems clearer
  to me that it has little to do with 'riding in lightness'."

Whew!

Debbie
deblev@ipac.caltech.edu
Newsgroups: rec.equestrian