At the beginning of March 2010 I bought Dexter after several rides. He had good natural movement but definitely needed more work, especially at the canter. I was on my own, I live out in the country, with no trailer and no trainer close enough to come work with me. But that was ok, at the time I didn't think there was anything I couldn't handle.
Dexter had a really insistent habit of chewing and biting at the bit. As soon as it was put in his mouth he would go the chewing on it. I tried all kinds of bits with the same results. I figured it was nerves from being at a new place and he would get over it.
So we started training, I knew he was strung out at the canter, so much so that on a curve, his back legs would often slip out from underneath him. So we did a lot of transitions to get his back end in shape. Walk-Trot-walk-trot-canter-trot-canter-walk... etc. The problem was he refused to take contact with the bit, his nose was always behind the bit, throwing of his balance in anything we did.
After a while I took a closer look at his mouth and found he had a wolf tooth. We got it removed and saw some improvement on his bit chewing, at least at the walk. He still didn't want to take contact, but I thought maybe he still associated the bit with pain and would get over it after a while. Plus, to be honest I never dealt with a horse who avoided the bit as bad as Dexter, I had no idea how to fix it.
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