From: tracy@scoraz.resp-sci.arizona.edu (Tracy Scheinkman)
Newsgroups: rec.equestrian
Subject: re: dressage bits
Date: 19 Nov 92 22:57:42 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

In Article 10017 in rec.equestrian deblev@nimoy.ipac.caltech.edu (Debbie Levine)
writes:

[m[A

>>	The problem here is that there are many people who will copy a person 
>>who rides bad higher level tests just because they are riding a higher level 
>>test.  [...]

>This is true.  I should point out, though, that same danger applies
>to copying ANYONE at ANY time, including the classical masters and 
>our trainers!  Anything that we pick up based on someone else's
>viewpoint, until we can validate it with our own experience, may
>NOT BE CORRECT!  Or, it might work in situation a, but not in situation
>b.  That's one of the great advantages to clinics, videotapes, this
>newsgroup, books, and years & years of experience!  But, even if
>we all ride for the next 50 years, not a single one of us will
>have "figured it all out".  That's one of the things *I* want 
>out of dressage, that sort of ultimate quest for "equestrian
>truth", an inexhaustible goal!

	Good point!  It also applies to different horses, my Arabian
mare is a wonderfully sensitive athletic horse who is tremendously
responsive but whose sensitivity means that I have to ride her 
differently than I would a horse with less sensitivity.  This is 
particularly true with regard to the Arabian tendency to hollow and
get above the bit and to lose rhythm.  Deb Bennett wrote in her 
recent article about Arabians that it is the Arabians' tremendous
muscular tonus that causes them to react much more quickly to a
poor saddle fit or a rider's movement and position.  Also I didn't
realize until recently that I had to count the rhythm of the gait
for her, in order to keep the rhythm, because Arabs don't have a
natural metronome built into them like warmbloods.  By contrast
I never have to really push her to extend like one might with
other horses, I "invite" her to extend and she does!  Also she
has the capacity to be lighter in the bridle than many horses
can which is a great joy.  (What can I say she's my baby :-))

>>But few of those horrible rides with snaffles were above the
>>lower levels, I'd guess!  Horrible rides and problems are supposed to
>>be worked out at the lower levels with a snaffle before proceeding 
>>higher.  Unfortunately many people look at the higher levels as a
>>chance to get around a problem by using a double bridle rather than
>>as a reward for solving the problem.

>This is a very good point.
 
>>	I disagree it is just the other way around, bad hands with a snaffle
>>can be seen much more easily as the horse immediately hollows and loses
>>collection, a curb tends to cover it up unless the errors are outrageous.

>I disagre, unless the horse's mouth has become insensitive 
>through abuse.  He might "curl himself up into a little ball"
>rather than hollowing, but he sure as heck won't be happy!

	You're absolutely right, he won't be happy, and he will have
a tense false kind of roundness.  But how often do we see such rides
being complemented because the horse was "nicely collected" (not by
the judge of course but by onlookers)?  Lower level dressage people
are still looking on collection and frame as everything, precisely
because they see it being rewarded in competition.  Afterall the 1991
tests now say that the horse must be "accepting the bit," at Training
Level.  This requirement encourages confussion in many lower level people
who do not understand the difference between a tense horse who is
collected (falsely) into a frame, and a nice round horse stretching
softly into the bit.  I know how confusing this is as I just learned
the difference this year!  Actually I had seen the difference much
earlier but I didn't know how it felt to ride a horse that was really
round and soft and stretching.  It is a world of difference when you know
what it is, but it is absolutely invisible to the person who doesn't
understand it.  

>In my (fairly limited) experience with curb bits, I have never
>noticed that I can create true roundness with a curb where I couldn't
>get it with a snaffle.  After all, if we are being stickler's for
>correctness, shouldn't it mostly come from the leg, anyway?

	Absolutely, the leg sends the horse, the hand receives the
horse, right?
	I actually saw one woman at a schooling show here ride her
1st level Arabian mare, hors de concors (for no placement), in a double 
bridle because she was having trouble with her and felt that that would 
be proper schooling for the horse.  The mare did go more quietly than the 
first time she rode, and her score (the score was posted though the rider
was not in competition) reflected that, only the comments by the judge 
indicated that the horse had merely traded one problem for another.
But some people do believe that the above example is a good way to train
a horse in dressage.

>>[...] However I feel that to
>>achieve true bit acceptance for the purposes of dressage one must use the 
>>snaffle, anything else creates a false collection and resistance.  The same is 
>>true of snaffles that are uncomfortable to the horse but for the sake of this 
>>discussion I am assuming that everyone has found a snaffle that is comfortable 
>>for their horse.

>Tracy, have you worked with a double bridle?  Are your comments from
>your own experience, or are they primarily philosophical?  I've been
>"dabbling at" dressage for about 9 years now, and I have to say, I
>think I know fewer right answers now than I did when I started!  Granted,
>I have never competed above first level, and have had limited
>schooling time on upper-level horses, and I have very little experience
>with the double -- but, you say you've been studying dressage for
>2 years, and you seem to have gotten a great deal of your influence
>from a single source.  I'm not putting ANYONE down, least of all
>Dr. Gahwyler, whose book I thought was excellant.  BUT, I would 
>encourage you to keep as open a mind as possible and to try first-hand
>as many (reasonable) approaches as you can.
>Debbie

	I have ridden one horse with a double bridle, and many horses
including my own with curb bits.  What I have learned about bitting
has been the result of my riding and learning experiences which started
when I was 6 years old, I am now 35 years old.  My personal experience
with horses started with my first mare who we bought when I was 8 and
who I owned until I was 20.  She taught me an awful lot about many
things some of which was bit related.  More I learned from reading and
from the efforts I have made to ride other horses and in training my
current mare, Cachet, and my filly, Mithril.  
	I took up dressage when I got Cachet as a very very green 4 year 
old who had not been properly bitted and dressage was recommended to me 
as a very good non-harsh method of training a young horse.  Since then I 
have read many books (not just Dr. Gahwyler's though he seems to put 
things in a very succinct way that is very clear and he was the first 
person I talked to who could explain some of the contradictions I was 
seeing in what was said on paper vs. what was being demonstrated in the 
ring) and I have taken as many lessons as I can afford with several different
trainers.  I ask a LOT of questions, not just what to do  but why? and
how? and when?  As to whom I have read, some of Xenophon in the form
of quotes from him not in the original language, Jean Froissard,
Alois Podhajsky, Dominique Barbier and many articles and some videos from 
people like Klimke, Betsy Steiner, and others who write articles for
magazines.    
	One thing I have learned is that everyone differs on what
they think is the "right" way to train a horse and my
beliefs have been colored by what I see working both for me and 
around me, in that case I hope I am a bit of a mirror for the way a lower
level dressage rider is seeing things.  Certainly I have wound up
combining many of the approaches I have been taught into the 
combination that works best for me and my horse.  For example, I
use a lot of TTEAM training techniques (including the TTEAM curb
bit with roller which I use on the trail whenever my mare is getting tense
to urge her to relax her jaw and soften her mouth) combined with a lot 
of LONG and LOW to get my mare to really relax and stretch her back.  It 
works so well for her if I do a warm-up that includes a wonderful sitting 
trot on her with her nose stretching almost to the ground, she gets this 
lovely soft eye and relaxed jaw (the hardest part for her was learning to 
relax her back and jaw) that when I have warmed her up this way she can then 
come onto the bit with soft round engagement that is smooth as silk
to ride.  My dressage instructor who was initially against using
TTEAM techniques is now grudgingly admitting that some of them work! 
	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? 
	I realize that this is not an issue that will be solved in this 
forum, it is part of an ongoing controversy in dressage today.

				Tracy and everybody