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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1131
  
| What kind of things does a german martingale help with? What kind of bits would you use with one? Would it be good for a mare that is getting heavy and shouldering in on her turns?
I currently use a smooth sweet six and rubber training forks, but it doesn't work very well on the pattern, just during collection off the pattern. |
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 Worst.Housekeeper.EVER.
 
Location: Missouri | IMO, a german martingale is useful for headset and allows for lateral movement. Training forks do not allow your horse to move his head/neck laterally, and could be why you are having issues with your horse being heavy and shouldering. Is there a reason your horse needs a device to hold his head? Again, just my opinion, but both can be useful tools for very short-term use, but can be a crutch when used too long. Neither teach true collection. I use both on a snaffle ring only. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1131
| We can't get anything done with nothing at all, she just doesn't take a snaffle serious without the forks or a tie down (and I try to avoid the tie down when I'm slow working) |
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The Advice Guru
Posts: 6419
| FlyingHigh1454 - 2014-09-28 3:34 PM
We can't get anything done with nothing at all, she just doesn't take a snaffle serious without the forks or a tie down (and I try to avoid the tie down when I'm slow working)
If the horse will not work without a training device, I would say there is a hole in the foundation that needs to be fixed before anything |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1131
| cheryl makofka - 2014-09-28 6:59 PM
FlyingHigh1454 - 2014-09-28 3:34 PM
We can't get anything done with nothing at all, she just doesn't take a snaffle serious without the forks or a tie down (and I try to avoid the tie down when I'm slow working)
If the horse will not work without a training device, I would say there is a hole in the foundation that needs to be fixed before anything
It's only on barrels, she was originally going to be a reining horse before I decided I wanted to do barrels more. She just doesn't respect slow work very well, easily distracted and bored. She will do everything off the pattern just fine. It's just keeping her attention in a snaffle bit for fine tuning (which could be a problem too, she may just need a different bit, Ty Mitchell suggested a short shank chain gag and Gary Arthur suggested a chain draw gag for slow work on her, but I just haven't really found any of either that weren't crazy expensive.) |
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 Extreme Veteran
Posts: 540
Location: My own little world :) | I use a german martingale when I have to constantly keep on a horse to keep its head where I want and keep it from leaning and pulling on me. But I only use it for a short time. Right now I'm using it and will use it for a week with all my horses because they are all at about the same stage and then I'll take it off next week.
I personally really like to change up my bits pretty regularly. Not to fix something so much but more to get them used to all different kinds of bits. I think they more they become accustomed to the better a horse they will be. And along the way you find that some horses just work better for the long run in different bits.
I would suggest really looking at what you are doing when you ride. Are you getting super tense in a run? Jerking on the horse? Having poor form? Then once you can rule that it isn't you I think look at your foundation as mentioned before and then maybe just play around with some different bits. You never know maybe this horse just doesn't like a snaffle. I had a mare a few years back that worked ok in a snaffle but when I put an S shank hackamore on her she was awesome! |
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