What's the next step?

Leverage-style headgear has often been misused, true, but it's possibilities are often misunderstood by the natural horsemanship community. People often use it to try to force a horse who needs a better foundation, but it can also allow you to have more feel with less maneuvering on your part on a well-schooled horse. It can allow you to be more fluid when you're doing things where you don't have the time to constantly be adjusting your reins (roping, mounting shooting, etc.) but you still want to be able to move from a neutral feel to contact and back fairly quickly.

Before transitioning to a tool that has a more sensitive feel, I would wait until you can do upward and downward transitions and basic turns on a draped rein, mostly off your legs and body cues through walk, trot and canter, in a fairly open area.

You can transition to a bosal or the Myler-type combo headgear, although a simpler alternative is a Billy-Allen mouthpiece with shorter shanks, maybe in the Myler series. It offers a little bit of lateral feel if needed due to the side-independent swivel action, and you could transition to a solid mouthpiece once you are riding predominately one-handed. I would not recommend a tom thumb due to the conflicting nutcracker action.

I agree that asking a horse to drop and release his neck and poll is key to keeping him off adrenaline from biomechanical standpoint, as well as encouraging him to use his back correctly for propulsion instead of bracing.

A curb bit can be a great tool to allow you to remind him to do this softly, as it already offers downward poll pressure and a inward feel.

I prefer to see my horses release their topline and release their poll to the vertical, but not flexing behind the vertical, as this creates tension as well as friction over the poll and possible ossifications there.

Keep learning and learn from everyone you can, take what works and discard the rest. Don't get caught up in people's close-mindedness, as long as you know you're doing it FOR the horse and not TO him.

Enjoy the journey.

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Horses are like dogs in so much as they want to serve. They want to do what ever it is that you communicate to them. That's what training really is, making them understand what you want them to do. They enjoy being your partner and participating in whatever the activity. That said, no amout of equipment/technology will substitute for the training. I have found I get better response from a soft, flat cotton rope (five plat about 5/8" wide) tied around the bottom jaw (where a bit would normaly sit) than any other bit/headstall combination I have tried over the past 40+ years. That puts the reins in direct contact with their bottom jaw...no slack between connections of reins, bit and headstall, no bit pulling on their mouth...no steel banging on molars...not to mention the weight factor. And it doesn't interfere with grazing. Riding a light touch with your rein hand low down on their withers in combination with your other hand applying pressue on their neck where the rein touches teaches them your hand pressure and rein pressure in that spot mean the same thing. Example: Hold the reins in your left hand, resting on the withers. Rein to the left as low on the neck as you can hold the reins and at the same time press on the right side of the neck with your right hand where the rein makes contact with the neck. Then introduce knee pressure into the mix and before long you can steer with your knees while your hands are full or in a pinch with your hand...as in shooting a bow & arrow.

Also with the reins tied directly to the bottom jaw, holding their head down gets real easy to do if necessary...not to mention the amount of stop you have.

When we start our horses the first ride is usually always done with a halter and lead rope we ride them around the pen just like that.

I ride in a bosal and after the horse is comfortable with me getting on and off, and stepping out and moving with me fine then I introduce the bosal and that is what I ride in. If I am training a horse to drive then after things are going fine in the bosal I will give it another few days to a week just to make sure the horse is completly comfortable then I introduce the driving bit.

I feel that if you know that when your horse is trained you will be riding him/her in a bosal then start the horse with the bosal, if you are going to be riding in a tom thumb then start the horse in a tom thumb. I feel that it can really confuse the horse if every couple weeks you are switching up what you are riding him in one week you are in a bosal, next a bit,next a mechanical hackamore, we feel that just throws too much at the horse at once. When we train horses for clients we find out what the owner prefers to ride in and that is what we use on the horse once we start riding them.

Hi, well I just have to say that if your horses are working well in a snaffle which is the gentlest bit why change it? Moving them on to a harsher bit will not make you have lighter hands. I ride dressage and have very light hands with just a plain snaffle. Light hands depend on the rider, not the bit the horse has.