Tying the rein of a horse around to a saddle horn or the horse’s own tail is an old horse training method. Trainers used to believe tying a rein to the saddle or tail so the horse had to bend it’s neck to take pressure off their mouth would teach a horse to give to the rein and not fight it, but today we understand it’s really just an extremely painful way to sore a horse’s mouth and build neck muscle incorrectly from fighting.<\/p>\n
This method of tying the reins of a bit around to saddle or tail only teaches a horse to equate the bit with pain: soften and bend to the bit and your neck will ache, brace on the bit and your mouth will be sored- there is no positive lesson for a horse to learn from this exercise. Some people still think this makes a horse more responsive, but it really just makes the mouth so sore for the next ride that of course they are more sensitive.<\/p>\n
Before you think of doing this to your horse, tie the top of your head to your knee with a shortened length of rope and see what you learn!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"