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Discussion on Contact with hackamores
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Member:
Pinkapp
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Posted on Friday, Dec 24, 2004 - 9:49 pm:
I got my now 30 year old gelding when he was 8 years old and still a stud. He'd only been ridden 3 times in his life and despite many, MANY hours of gentle introduction to a bit, he never learned to accept one. Headtossing was a continual problem for us and the longer we rode, the less attention he paid to me. Extensive dental exams turned up nothing unusual and floating didn't change a thing. In desperation, I switched to a hackamore and rode him, even in amongst mares, without another problem for another 10 years.
About that time he started objecting to ANY pull on the hackamore, no matter how slight. In fact, he reared and almost went over on top of me. Even though he'd had routine dental exams and care throughout his life with me, believe it or not, the vet found a baby tooth that had never been shed. By this point, it was blackened and had migrated up the side of his gums, yet refused to fall out on it's own. It's hard to imagine, but he had his last baby tooth extracted at age 18! After that we went back to the hackamore without a problem. So don't fall into that trap that just because you're not using a bit that dental issues can't cause training problems.
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