Last year’s Australian Young Horse Seminar with Dr. Ulf Möller attracted a degree of controversy. Ulf suggested that the young horse be ridden with a firmly buckled nose band, and this provoked a heated exchange of letter in Chris Hector's Horse Magazine.
Hector was quite sure Ulf was aware of the controversy (the magazine does go each month to Hagen) and he was not backing away at this year’s event.
The first thing he did with the very first horse, Georgina Catermole’s Belaire Maserati was check the nose band. “We have to make sure it is not too open. Some people think open is good and it is punishment to close the nose band. This is not a black and white issue, there is lots of grey in between, this nose band must be closed in the right way.”
“When the nose band is closed in the right way, it gives the horse a line and the horse comes away from the bit, and into self carriage. When the nose band is too open, that’s when the horse can develop a tongue problem, and that can be very hard to fix.”
It was notice that Dr Möller was ready to confront the lighter than thou brigade in a presentation that took no prisoners, but first he had a little advice for Australian riders: “In the nine years I have been coming here there has been a big development in Australia of the young horses and the riding. Early on, people asked me – what can we do? - and I said send some to Europe. Not necessarily to the stables of the stars, but to some of the middle stables where they can really ride and not just muck out. Some came to our stables and I think you say at this show, Daniella (Dierks) and Sarah (Honeywell), they were good ambassadors for PSI…”
Photo © Roz Neave
Read the complete Ulf Möller Clinic Report on HorseMagazine.com