It has been SOOOO hot and humid this week. One of the few good aspects of my MS is that when it is hot I am guaranteed not to work the horses too hard for the weather conditions. I can't do much more than walk with an occasional short trot. This weather is not good for vigorous athletic pursuits, and with the pollution it isn't good for the lungs to do deep breathing, for both horse and rider.

I have been working on keeping a light, steady contact with the horse's mouth. The Wellep bit works a little differently from the Dr. Bristol, and I am concentrating on feeling the horse's tongue while on contact. The Dr. Bristol is ideal for feeling the tongue when it is put on right, the horse carries the center plate flat on its tongue and the horse can communicate through moving the center plate or by moving one of the side pieces. Since the Wellep bit I am using has a center joint it is more challenging for me to figure out exactly what the horse is trying to tell me through its tongue movement. My aim right now is to keep the horse's tongue relaxed and mobile. The Wellep bit really helps with this because as soon as I relax my fingers the horse can play with the suddenly mobile mouthpiece, helping them to relax.

When I started riding contact was all about having contact with the bars of the horse's mouth. Since the main bit in use for hunt seat 40 years ago was the single-jointed snaffle there wasn't much communication with the horse's tongue. So we drove our horses forward into the bit with our legs until we got contact with the horse's bars. If our hands were really good we would get jaw flexions, but with normal hands we would just get contact. The horse got our messages, but we did not feel the horse's tongue moving and missed all the subtle messages that the horse was sending back.

I remained ignorant of the tongue messages until I started using the Kimberwick, the Weymouth curb (in a double bridle and alone), and the double-jointed snaffles. Gradually my fingers started noticing the tongue's movements before the horse did something on its own (bolting, shying, dropping contact, etc.), and unconsciously I started communicating with the horse through the bit. This new communication was WAY above the old way, instead of me just communicating to my horse "DO THIS" and the horse more or less obeying I started having little discussions with my horse, true two way communication. Instead of saying "DO THIS" with my hands, my fingers started suggesting to the horse that it might be fun to do something different, and then, reading the horse's tongue, I adapted and refined my aids in response to my horse's movements. My horses rewarded me, I started to get soft, responsive downward transitions, and my horses were much more willing to move forward into my relaxed fingers. Trust grew, me trusting my horse and my horse trusting me, because we were constantly communicating with each other.

When I got back into the bigger hunter/eventing/dressage horse culture after working on my own for 15 years I was horrified. I read about people dictating that contact should be anywhere from 1/2 pound pressure to 22 pounds of pressure to ride the horse properly. I usually use grams of contact, in a heated discussion I might get up to a few ounces. Since I do not use nosebands my horses are perfectly able to open their mouths if my contact is too hard, and I know if I use pounds of pressure my horses mouths will be gaping open. Ah, then I learned that the competition riders used TIGHT nosebands, even using a pulley system to get the noseband extra tight. Their horses do not run around with their mouths gaping open because the horse cannot open his mouth--it is tied shut. No light finger movements here, no immediate relaxation of contact for correct responses. And the horse's tongue? Well, depending on the bit it is either severely squashed down or put into a vise grip--there is absolutely no possibility for two way communication between the horse and rider. Instead the competition riders depend on seat, weight and the legs to try and communicate subtleties to their horses.

Recently I read on the web that scientists have proven that large animals react slower to stimuli because the nerve signals have to go over a longer distance, feet instead of inches, and that the returning nerve signals also take more time. The horse qualifies as a large animal. The horse's brain is in its HEAD, and whatever signal you give with your seat and hand HAS TO travel up to the horse's brain (or spinal cord for reflex actions.) The tongue is richly provided with sensory nerves for taste, pressure, and fine movements, AND the tongue is right there in the horse's head, right next to the brain. Why in the world would "fine riders" trying to train responsive horses totally ignore these enhanced communication possibilities? Why do these "fine riders" need to use several different muscles (in the abdomen and legs) to communicate a command that takes me twitching one or two muscles in my fingers? The horse's tongue is just as useful for communication as our tongues are. The horse's tongue is soft, sensitive, and amazingly mobile. It notices every movement of the bit, and is capable of manipulating the bit in response to our actions. But you cannot get this level of communication if you have POUNDS of pressure on your horses mouth. The poor tongue gets squashed and painfully squeezed and the horse's tongue then has absolutely no hope of moving to communicate with the rider, the pressure is just too heavy. Besides, it hurts.

When I started getting interested in horses over 50 years ago a rider was not considered a good horseman unless his (or her) hands were light and responsive. The heavier the contact (except for brief moments in emergencies) the worse the rider was deemed to be. Horses going fast voluntarily take a stronger contact, this was fine, but if you were riding around in a ring especially in collected gaits you were looked down upon if your contact was heavy. Of course it was really evident if the contact was not good since the nosebands were put on loose enough so the horse could open its mouth some. Heavy handed riders were not put on hot, sensitive horses, it was just too dangerous for the rider.

Riders, PLEASE lighten up with your hands!!! Please relax your fingers between commands, and please immediately release the pressure on the rein when you give a command. "Listen" to your horse's tongue with your fingers, your horse is trying to talk with you. It may take a while for trust to grow, but the reward is beyond compare. Relaxed tongue talking to relaxed fingers, give and take, supple fingers moving in response to the horse's tongue, and the horse's relaxed tongue moving in response to the rider's softly moving fingers. After a while the horse starts IMMEDIATELY responding to the rider's hands with no resistance. PURE HEAVEN.

Have a great ride.