Chain length - the mystery question...is really pretty simple. Now you KNOW you can't TOUCH the chain, however you can touch the leather lead all you want... I tell my clients that they need to have 3 or 4 links showing from their halter to their leather lead, you can move your hand up and down the leather lead, but you CAN'T move your hand up and down the chain...right?
How MUCH lead should you use? Depends on your individual situation. You need to have it loose enough so that you're not pulling your horse's head towards your body as you walk or trot (your horse will then start stopping with it's hip kicked out and/or walk/trot next to you canted). However, not so loose that your horse will wander away (and this is not necessarily true for those "broke" showmanship horses).
By having only 3 or 4 links, you have great control IF YOU NEED it...BUT if you have more than 4 links, if you need control, you may not HAVE it.... You can move your hand up and down the leather lead to give yourself and your horse more or less control and tension.
For those that watch the showmanship videos with the extremely loose lead, I'm not going to fault you in the showpen as long as everything goes PER.FECTLY.... kind of like a flying change in horsemanship...it better be PERFECT or you'll get counted down big time!
So chain length, 3 or 4 links...leather lead length...depends...how's that for a "clear as mud" answer....
IDEALLY your horse should move off of your body language and you SHOULD be able to show shankless...IDEALLY.... but we all live in the real world and MOST horses and exhibitors don't have that kind of control...
I'll try and get some photos of my clients in the near future showing correct and incorrect lead length for those of you that are visual...until then...practice, practice, practice!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment