Head Control

Thank goodness we never stop learning, and when you are exposed to so many horses out side of your own circle, you can't help but be enlightened by outstanding issues and problem horses. A private seminar just this past week was one that taught me just how important the control over the horse's head really is. Two different riders, along with their horses that were participating in the seminar had real problems with young horses that had months of training. These two riders, and their horses had a big lesson for me to identify, get control of the head.

How far away from getting bucked off your horse are you today. Every ride was a risk in the first ten minutes of riding these two horses, you might get launched. I quickly gathered that we all have a horse like this, it may take a year of letting the horse go where it wants, push it's nose and head into us where and when it wants to. Soon, giving your horse the freedom to take off with no direction when you saddle, get on, and take a trail ride with your horse, never applying a bit pressure to the horse, will soon give the horse so many ideas of freedom it might free you from the saddle.
My first tip to these horses with too much freedom was start at the hitching rail. Tie up your horse with a two foot lead rope was the first lesson we went over, to start with the big lesson of gaining control over the horse's feet. Wait a minute, now we are talking about controlling the horses feet, and this whole blog is on "head control". Right, you will gain control over where the horse's feet go by developing the discipline over the head. These horses were getting three feet of rope or more when tied to be brushed and saddled. With their heads up in the air, dancing around looking for their pasture mates. Now with a shorter lead rope, the horses were taking a look at discipline before we ever left the grooming area.
When moving on to getting the horses saddled and bridled for the riding seminar, the horse's had to give their nose to the pressure asking them to turn and bend the neck to the left to be bridled, and they hated it. The lack of consistency with discipline to move away from the pressure applied to it's nose was more than obvious and unwilling. All of this giving to pressure transfers to riding with the control over the horses nose with the bridle. Since there was no bend to the pressure in the halter, the horse had little willingness in the bridle too.
The start to controlling the horse's feet with head control on the ground is asking the horse to turn around the front left foot. When you have the horse pivoting around this left front foot with the nose giving over to the left shoulder you have enough control on the horse's feet to then wait for them to completely stop moving. This tells you that the time is near to get on the horse and start all the same process over again and again from the saddle. I say, nose control starts when you halter your horse and get it caught, till you release your horse after your ride.
Tie-downs give a horse the same idea of head control that a halter with a short lead rope tied to a hitching-post does. If you have ever ridden a horse with a tie-down that just acted better than ever, even seemed calmer, and you received considerable more control while riding the horse, it had major head control problems. The tie-down is just a bandaid that when it comes off, you will still be bleeding.

Head control areas that I'll cover soon:
Head Control ; In Circles ; In lead changes: In your stop ; In your roll backs ; OVER DISTRACTIONS for roping and shooting off your horse for the first time.