>>> Much better demo! Still see fighting the bit; gotta get rid of the >>> nosebands so the >>> riders will be more aware of their hands and how their horse accepts the >>> bit.
I can't see enough detail about the bits and nosebands in that video to comment. I can see that most of the horses seem to be traveling in reasonably relaxed frames, considering what they are doing. In a situation like that, with so many horses together, you'd probably have at least a couple of horses "fighting the bit" even if they were no bits involved. Even if you ride regularly with a group, very few people get a chance to ride with large groups of people where there is any sort of precision pattern involved. My definition of "large group with precision" would be with an drill team of 8 - I can't imagine 80. And of course, "precision" is a relative term - a dressage pas de deux could be much more precise... but then, the pair would probably ride together often to perfect that pattern. The first few times we did them, we used horses that were basically well-trained...and it was still a Chinese fire drill! You don't realize how different the horse's strides are until you try to match them up... you may not realize that a certain horse would rather lead than follow... or that this gelding is intimidated by that mare... or that this perfectly sweet mare has just this instant gone into heat and has developed a crush on THAT gelding... and on and on... Hopefully, most owners want to continue working on making the horses comfortable in many situations, never feeling that their training is "finished", but I can tell you from experience, that sometimes you just don't see a hole in your horses training until you put him/her in a certain situation! Karen Thomas, NC
