Karen Lynd wrote: Oh, and I'm not a horse trainer, but I
think you should give the horse his head when he stumbles. He needs head
freedom to be able to recover. If you follow your trainer's advice, you
may end up causing the horse to fall or making him shy of the bit. Think
about when you stumble - if someone was holding your head and not letting you
move it so you could balance yourself when you stumble, would you be more likely
to fall? I would.
My best horse used to buck or stumble every step when he
was five. Shoeing fixed the stumbles and he turned into a real mountain
goat, even with egg bar shoes on the front. Lot of riding practice fixed
the bucks. But, the unexpected benefit of the stumbling was that I learned
to give him his head to get his balance back and, in doing so, learned to ride
without holding onto the reins for balance.
