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 In my experience, draw reins don't teach anything. When a
horse figures out the draw reins are off, his head will go
back to where it was before. Believe me it dosn't take long
for them to figure out when they are in draw reins and when
they aren't. I have also seen horses in draw reins that may
have the desired "headset" but are behind the bit and still
traveling with a hollowed out back.

 From my understanding of the "headsetting" post you are
trying to get vertical flexion. Driving a horse from back
to front is ideal BUT until you get a horse soft in the
face and giving to the bit (vertical flexion) you can drive
from the hindend and still not get the back lifted. Also,
by holding a horse that hasn't been taught vertical flexion
and driving him up into the bit you will just compress his
movement and not achieve true lifting of the spine and may
even cause the horse to lean or get heavy on the bit.

When training a horse you teach from front to back then
ride from back to front. In essence this means first you
teach lateral flexion, then vertical, then you gain control
of the shoulders,then the ribcage(back) and finally the
hindquarters. Until each bodypart is perfected in sequence
you will find "holes" in the bodypart that is next in the
sequence. The more you skip or gloss over the basic
building blocks the larger your holes in your training will
be, eventually causing major problems.

 My horse Reno is a prime example of this. He is an
ex-dressage horse that was trained from the back to front.
after 5 years of this he ended up being very heavy on the
bit, became extemely agitated with any leg cues and
constantly dropped his shoulder. So he was sold to me as a
trail horse (with a major attitude unbeknownst to me at the
time) By starting from ground one and teaching him from
front to back he is slowly getting over his "problems".
After a year we are only up to shoulder control but he is
solid in lateral and vertical flexion, very soft in the
bridle and is accepting of leg cues without a major hissy
fit. We are just now adressing shoulder control which will
put an end to the dropped shoulder habit.

My whole point being, first get your horse soft and supple
to lateral flexion before asking for vertical flexion
(headsetting).

Regards,
Penny

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