Developing a Soft Feel

Today was more arena work and training for both of us. I've been puzzled as to how I could get Calvin to have a soft feel to where I pick up on the reins and he collects himself instead of pushing back on the bit. Whenever I would pull on the reins to stop, he would sort of brace against the bit like this horse. He was still very responsive to stopping and turning, but I was wondering how I would be able to collect him (notice this horse has his head tucked in closer to his chest and is giving to the pressure on his nose).

Many times when horses don't collect, people think they need a gag bit, elevator, harsh bits, or draw reins to get a horse to drop it's head and give to bit pressure. These bits (minus the draw reins) are designed to put pressure on the horse's poll. As you can see in this picture, the bit pulls on the side of the bridle putting pressure on the horse's poll encouraging forcing them down. As Buck says in the video below, horses go "soft" in these bits because it hurts them. It's not actually being soft, it's avoiding the pain, which is a huge difference. Keep in mind I've used almost all of these (minus the harsh bit) at one point in my life before I knew better. This time, I wanted to avoid the shortcuts and practice horsemanship as it should be practiced. Did these shortcuts work to keep their head down? Yes. But when the bit or gadgets came off, the horse didn't keep his head down, imagine that...
These are all just shortcuts for proper training. As you can see below (both with my video and Buck's), all you need is a regular snaffle or hackamore for your horse to collect.

I then watched this Buck Brannaman video (this video is 12 minutes, if you have time I'd highly recommend watching it as it would make the rest of this post easier to understand and the topic is interesting) and had an "ah ha" moment! Calvin's mouth isn't "dead" like this one in his video, but rather Calvin is inexperienced or "green". I did exactly what Buck did in this video, I started on the ground and then practiced these techniques riding. I would pull on the reins (called contact), and when he'd "soften" or back off the pressure (closing his mouth and dipping his nose back), I would immediately release.

This is a video of the end of our ride. Basically, whenever Calvin stopped resisting or pushing on the bit, I would release his mouth. You'll see at the end that I didn't release right away when he softened because he had advanced to where if I kept that contact, he would give even more and start backing up. Once he took a step back, I would then release. Calvin picked up on this really quickly and it wasn't very difficult, but the timing has to be perfect. He also managed to do all of this in a soft rubber snaffle. It may not look like much to the non-horse person, but this is a really important exercise. The point of this is to develop a horse that can back up properly, with his haunches under him, and also be able to stay balanced with only slight rein pressure.

I really do value much of what Buck does, he makes this easy for the horse to understand. It's "little" exercises like these that add up to make a very responsive and advanced horse. Slowly but surely I'll be able to advance the time I keep contact with his mouth to where he learns that the minute I pull back he softens and then backs up nicely.

I had to cut this video down, this is the end of our exercise, but I still think you can see the progress if you look closely.