04/22/2025
More schooling opportunities and don’t be afraid to put in the work. 1000%
Do people actually school their horses anymore?
Genuinely starting to wonder. I saw a post on Facebook recently, someone jumping 60cm in a Pelham, and now looking for something stronger because the horse is “too strong to the fence.”
Let’s just pause for a second.
The horse? A dressage horse. Supposedly well-schooled, able to collect, extend, work laterally yet apparently can’t be ridden over a tiny fence without throwing more metal at the issue? That’s not a bitting problem. That’s a training problem. And if you’re needing that much hardware to get over a crosspole, it’s time to ask the hard question, Is the rider ready to be jumping at all?
If your horse is rushing, ignoring your aids, and crashing through fences at this height, a harsher bit isn’t going to solve it. It might mask the problem, temporarily, but it’s still there, simmering underneath. And it’s only going to surface again, at a worse time, with bigger consequences.
Stronger bits are not a substitute for education. The work doesn’t begin at the fence. It begins before the first pole is even set up: with flatwork, groundwork, polework, transitions, adjustability, all the building blocks that make a horse rideable, responsive, and safe. You don’t just jump in and pull when it gets fast. That’s not training, that’s damage control.
Schooling and going back to basics is and always has been, the foundation of proper showjumping. Any top-level rider worth listening to will tell you that (though, yes, a few could use the reminder themselves). You don’t get control from a bit. You get it from balance, discipline, and respect, built from the ground up, over time.
And if your horse already has a dressage foundation? Then all the more reason to expect more, not less, in terms of responsiveness and communication. That training should carry over not get thrown out the window the minute there’s a pole on the ground.
And let’s not ignore the other side of this: If a horse is acting out, there are other questions that need asking too about fitness, pain, saddle fit, ulcers, or just plain overload. But none of those are solved with more leverage either. They’re solved by listening, observing, and doing the proper legwork.
Bits are tools not solutions. If you’re maxed out already at 60cm in a Pelham and reaching for something harsher, the problem isn’t in your tack box. It’s in your training plan or lack of one.
Do the work. Train the horse. Respect the process. Or ask yourself if you’re really being fair to the animal you’re sitting on.
