See-sawing?

Question

What is your take on see-sawing to get a horse to break at the pole?

Answer 1

I don't do it and I hate seeing other people do it.  I'm usually a hunter jumper but I work at a western quarter horse barn in the summers.  This summer I trained a QH mare and went to a QH show.  We were lucky to have the stalls right next to the ring so everyone had to walk by us to get to the ring...  it made me sick to see 90% of the riders walking to the ring were yanking back and forth on the sides of the horse's mouth!  It made me really mad to watch... first of all, I wouldn't do that when training the horse.  second, those riders were walking up to the show ring... if the horse isn't trained to keep its head down by now, you shouldn't be at the show.  third, I don't think it actually works.  At my barn when we train horses, when the horse's head comes up, we give leg and hand pressure together until the head comes back down... then you release the hand pressure as their reward.  Then we work on doing it mostly by leg pressure so that you only have to give a little wiggle of the hand and the head will come back down.  That way in a show, you can correct the head issue with your legs rather than making a big scene with throwing your hands around.  I trained that QH mare that way and it really works well... and it upsets the horse a lot less than yanking on its face.  At first it is a little hard... the mare didn't understand what to do the first day.  But the second day she started to get the idea and by the third day she was cantering around with her head down as if she always knew what to do.  Teaching them to put their head down with your leg pressure is much better for the horse and for the rider in a show and I wish more people understood how to do it and train their horses that way.

Answer 2

I don't like, it is unnecessary, as the first answer stated so well, and I've seen horses take a bad step on level ground and hurt themselves while it is being done to them.