hi it's josie and today i want to talk to you about walking your horse on the bit and the
reason i want to do this is that i got a comment from someone saying that they were struggling to
get their horse to walk on the bit and that they were almost ready to give up and my answer to that
comment was i don't actually walk my horses on the bit until they're well established at going
on the bit at trot and canter the walk is a very easy gait to ruin in a horse as such a walk should
be a good walk should be a four beat one two three four one two three four one two three four
and when we start to pull the horse together from the front we can lose the rhythm of the walk once
you've lost the rhythm of the walk biomechanically you're actually doing your horse harm
and not good physiotherapy to put it a better way so my horses all go as a very green
just starting horse on a completely loose rein at the walk and all my horses warm up at the walk on
a completely loose rein i've done a warm-up and this is from my horse who's working at medium
right down to a green horse that i'm riding the first few times i'll link that up here and i'll
link that in the description but my horses all start walking on no contact and that way
they can just keep their nice one two three four one two three four one two three four rhythm and
then when they're a little bit further along in their training i actually teach them to go
with a connection or a contact now that is not on the bit that is very different and i need
you to understand this because this is the way you progressively build your horse to go
on the bit and you don't use your hands to take your horse from the front to the back because
that is not on the bit so for a horse to go on a contact you literally just pick your reins up
and you have a contact with his mouth i have a contact with spider's mouth here he's not on
the bit but i can feel the corners of his mouth he can feel my fingers so if i squeeze this one
see his ear came back to me his left ear sorry i think you should be able to know what i'm doing
i'll do that again oops i have no contact now i have no connection now i have it again
it does come on and off particularly in the beginning on a green horse not that spider is
but i have a connection with his mouth now i want you to notice what my hands are doing
they're going forward so a horse naturally at walk nods its head it goes out out
out out your job as the rider is to follow that he doesn't follow your hands you follow his mouth
some horses will take offense to you touching the bit and that's okay that's there they're
allowed to have an opinion it's your job to just quietly follow their mouth wherever it goes
with the lightest possible contact you can have that's why you have to have a good seat
and good balance so you cannot have straight stiff arms i'm going to show you what happens
sorry spider i apologize i'm going to straighten my elbows and stiffen my arms so he's there's no
contact there he's bouncing back i don't know if you can see him coming back at me now instead of
his ears going forward and out they're coming back and now if i allow with my arms i have
to get him back to trust me now because they don't like it when you hit them in the mouth
so my elbows are bent and my hands go forward forward forward forward
there is a difference i'll just turn sideways a bit spider for me please so my hands at the walk
are going forward forward forward forward i never think about the come backwards bit because i don't
ever want to come backwards with my hands not that i don't i do we all make mistakes but i want my
hands to be going forward forward so if you put a line here i want my hands to go forward forward
i don't want them to go forward forward forward forward can you see how that's backwards forwards
it's just forward forward forward so when the hand comes back a little it's just like an elastic
recoil from your elbow that's why you need a bent elbow to be able to do this so if you're
one of those people that rides like this and if i could find an old photo i would show you because i
certainly was with dead straight arms you need to think about picking you just need to pick up your
hand keep your elbow where it is and just pick up your hand not up high just pick up your hand so
the other thing i used to watch in the early days is that my horse's ears were going away from me
if they're going away from me then i know that my hands is following his mouth if i block him
they come back at me back back back so if you just look at me for a minute the horse should be going
forward forward forward not back back back so if the bit is here and he's going forward and
you're allowing it to go forward with your elbows it's good but if you hold it here and he goes
does that help you see it you have to have hands that follow the horse's mouth so in
the very beginning and i promise you guys i did this i would have my horse
on a long rein and i would literally do this and try and time it with his head
so in the beginning i used to get the lightest possible contact with my horse's mouth and i
used to make my hand and like here i would get out of time with him and but then what happened is you
began to feel the timing when it was right and when you got out of time and when you get out of
time with your horse just that's okay just realize you got out of time and try so together together
together together yep and now spider then reached for that because it was a much softer contact
when your elbows get softer and your timing with your hands to go forward forward forward
become better your horse will take the contact more and you can then bring him up
and walk him on the bit good boy
good boy good
i hope that helps you with understanding why you would not walk your horse on the bit until he is
established in trot at least and preferably and canter walk him on the contact by all means but
don't try and make him walk on the bit you don't have to walk your horse on the bit you can walk
your horse on the contact though which is very different walking on the contact just means that
you have a connection with your horse's mouth and you're having a conversation with him through the
rein and the bit and he's having a conversation with you i would like to point out when you're
working on having a connection with the horse you follow his mouth he does not follow your hand that
does not happen the reins and the bit belong to the horse and that's the way it stays