Education of
A yearlong series that follows the training and development of a young stallion.
Toti The
By JP Giacomini
Regardless of the discipline one intends for the future of a young, athletic sport horse, most trainers will agree that the first year of work is focused on the basics. Although there are many roads that can “lead us to Rome,” this column will present the ongoing education of the three- year-old Warmblood stallion Totil Hit, or “Toti,” over a period of one year. From backing to his debut in competition, trainer JP Giacomini will present the techniques he uses for Toti, working in hand, on the lunge and long lines, free jumping and under saddle.
Training Journal #4 Bitting
A
t this stage of his training, Toti is being transi- tioned from a contact on his nose to more and more of a contact on the bit. I am very cautious
about contact because it is, as a rule, very easy to create bad mouth habits in sensitive horses that take forever to cure. When a horse feels that he is trapped, regardless of how long you spent eradicating an undesirable habit, it will still come back as the “go to” behavior. A snaffle bit creates pressure on the tongue or the lips (depending on the height of the rider’s hand and the position and move- ments of the horse’s head). The tongue ends up squeezed between the sharp end of the bars and the bit and it will soon discover many ways to escape that pressure: it can roll back, get over the bit or hang out. Once the reflex is started, good luck eradicating it! The way we address that potential problem in my school is by starting all young horses with a padded chain attached to the halter (in effect a flexible, adjust- able cavesson), get them used to the feel of the bit independently from any hand action and little by little transfer the nose contact (90% nose, 10% bit) to the mouth contact (90% mouth, 10% nose). We do that by clipping the reins to both the chain and the bit high up and progressively move the clip lower down
Photo at top by Shelley Giacomini
to increase the mouth contact and diminish the nose contact. As the horse progresses in balance and supple- ness, he becomes more able to respond quickly to the actions of the aids and can avoid the initial discomfort on his tongue by the flexibility of his jaw, poll and neck rather than by pulling his tongue away from the contact altogether.
Lateral Flexibility in Hand Toti has learned lateral work from the start of his educa- tion, as it is indispensable to creating the suppleness he needs to become upright, which is the base of balance. This is a technique we use throughout the horse’s life, getting him progressively more comfortable with side steps, first in the shoulder-in bend and later in the half- pass bend. Toti is learning to move sideways, but also to halt in the lateral work, gaining control of his own balance in all directions. Halting in a half-pass position uses quite different muscles than halting from a straight position (parallel to the wall for instance). The other important step in all lateral work is to teach the horse to step out of it onto the circle (following his nose). In lateral steps, the horse pushes less of his outside lateral pair and in the circle, he pushes more, so transitions in all three gaits from one to the other are one of the keys to good training. The faster the pace, the harder this transi- tion is because the horse has to fight his own momen- tum and change his course, just as the orbiters circling
Warmbloods Today 47
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