What you need to know about The Zentora Com’Along Leading Halter

The Leading - Training - Loading - Tying - Lunging - Halter - For Every Occasion when You Need your Horse to Com’Along - Isn’t that ALL THE TIME?

Because it entirely bypasses the “natural opposition reflex”, the Com’Along Halter PERSUADES your horse to move forward without any stress-related topline inversion. You and your Horse BECOME ONE through the softness of this amazing connection and reward his impulsion with the reassurance of safety and vagal-induced relaxation. All this progress transfers under saddle.

The Zentora Com’Along Leading Halter is the Next Step in Training Efficacy & Kindness for groundwork! Laying the foundation for correct biomechanics and behavior.

WHAT DOES THE JP COM’ALONG HALTER DO?


The Zentora Com’Along Halter™ eliminates the main issue of horse handling on the ground. By creating a conditioned reflex (the “Com’Along Effect™”) that mimics the instinctual “Rejoining the Herd” equine behavior, it teaches the horse to go forward without expressing its natural resistance to human demands. It helps to educate him
for every situation where calm and compliance are essential for safety, and that’s all the time!

Ground training with the JP Com’Along Halter™ immediately improves:

    1. The handler safety and horse welfare: a horse that goes forward toward his handler is not running away or distracted by external stimuli, so he does not get into trouble or become dangerous.
    2. The horse’s desire to go forward on demand, with a rounded topline that replaces the resistance expressed by any degree of inversion of the neck/topline.
    3. The response to the leading forward action is the “First Rein Effect” in the classical training protocol. Once the horse responds to leading, he will improve his response to all other rein effects (in every direction) because his front feet are no longer bracing against any rein action.
    4. The horse positive attitude, emotional balance associated with the “rest and digest” parasympathetic mode.
    5. The increased range of motion in all directions, which means better strike-off, better rein-back and better turns. Because its action is on the lower jaw, the turns are facilitated, but not the bend that comes from turning the
      upper jaw, with its influence on the poll, neck and entire spine. The correct bending is better secured by the Zentora Com’Along Cavesson™, currently in development.
    6. The lateral balance and resulting self-carriage.
    7. Trailer loading and less occurrence of pulling back when tied to a ring or in cross ties.
    8. The manifestation of friendship toward the handler.

Those are the components of goodwill, cooperation and control in the horse-human relationship. From the POV of social license, we must remember that 90% of public indignation arises in view of legitimate horse(wo)men’s asking horses to go forward that are poorly executed and result in horses resisting the aids and ineffective handlers becoming frustrated. This is how regrettable (but entirely avoidable) violence occurs.

The Com’Along Effect™ strongly contributes to the development of the handler’s feel and technique and the improvement of equine emotional and physical wellbeing through better balance, impulsion and suppleness.

These positive bio-mechanical modifications relax the horse, secure the handler’s leadership with a profoundly positive effect on the horse’s behavior. The universal principle of horsemanship “Train the horse to become Calm, Forward and Straight” is entirely satisfied. It helps develop self-carriage by teaching the horse to change his posture, direction and speed on the smallest aids, but most importantly, the handler that leads so effectively becomes the de-facto dominant attraction in the horse’s ethogram because it acts like The Herd, providing safety and protection. Teaching the horse to lead with the Zentora Com’Along Halter™ helps develops lightness from both the mouth and the feet. Eliminating the bracing of the front legs supports the fundamental goals of horsemanship indispensable to all disciplines for amateurs and professionals alike. “The Horse you Lead is the Horse you Ride” (John Lyons). The benefits of groundwork with the Com’Along Halter™ creates deep neurological memories that stay with the horse.


WHEN SHALL WE USE THE ZENTORA COM’ALONG HALTER™?


When a horse is reluctant to go forward, he locks his knees by activating his “Stay Apparatus”, inverts his neck and braces his feet and neck against the forward pull of the halter/lead line (or the rider’s legs).

When teaching the horse to come to its leader, the Zentora Com’Along Halter™ greatly helps its goodwill to move forward with quicker feet, gives handler’s control in everyday tasks, facilitates turning when lunging. It is also great for teaching to tie (and not pull back), for loading in a trailer, for jumping on the lunge, getting into starting gates at the track and generally cementing the relationship between the horse and its benevolent leader. If used systematically, the Zentora Com’Along Halter™ will influence the biomechanical plasticity of the horse, and from there, engage the neuroplasticity of the brain (its ability to remodel its synaptic profile), in a word, to learn new concepts and adopt new behaviors.

A muscle memory becomes a functional habit and is strongly supported by very strong synapses that are reinforced and multiplied by its repetition. The inversion of the neck is due to the lack of engagement of the brachiocephalic, sternocephalic and hyoid related muscles. When they become systematically engaged by the exclusive use of the Com’Along Halter™, the neck arches and all 4 feet respond to the leading rein by an instantaneous front foot lift followed by a quick diagonal hind foot. The synapses that are being used repeatedly for the correct biomechanical action become stronger and the old ones relative to the neck inversion fall off like dead tree branches.

This is why it is important to use the halter on every occasion, not just when a problem arises. Asking the horse to always lead correctly, nose forward and foot forward creates a new biomechanical habit that imitates how the great horses move naturally, while the less perfect ones can learn and adopt the right form in their walk.

Gustav Rau, the father of German Dressage told us:

“The mistake some riders make in the beginning of dressage, is to work the horse in a certain external posture that does violence to the animal, and creates stiff, constrained horses. The better way should come from developing complete suppleness progressively, so that the horse assumes of itself the posture that best suits his physique and thus is the right one for him [at that stage of his training]. Dressage systems aiming to achieve the final external form of thetrained horse immediately, such as high carriage or overly-deep are false. They tempt the rider to work from the outset by constraint to achieve an external form that is not natural to the horse. If the art of riding, at all stages of the horse’s education, strives to develop its suppleness [and balance], its goal is fulfilled, and no other system is needed.”

The Com’Along System is designed to improve all the horse’s natural tendencies and turn them into educated responses that become their own reward, simply by adopting better movements and behaviors, already coded in the equine DNA and ethogram. It fits in with the ideas common to the great masters of the past: 

“Train the horse to do what is natural in response to the aids. It is the basis of Equestrian Harmony, the Path of the Centaur.” JP G.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

  1. The placement of the JP Com’Along Halter’s crown lower down on the neck (through the adjustment of the throat latch) avoids the resistance that many horses manifest when poll pressure is applied by regular halters.
  2. Instead, the JP Com’Along Halter light pressure behind the jowl easily brings the head forward with an arched neck and an open throat latch after a few sessions. A simple test of using fingertips to pull the head forward by the jowl easily demonstrates the principle.
  3. The “Vagal Trigger” feature located in the “throat gullet” encourages the horse to lift its tongue, swallow and salivate, all well-known signs of the relaxation associated with the “Rest and Digest” state governed by the Vagus nerve.
  4. In turn, swallowing requires a motion of the hyoid apparatus, which is attached to several muscles that contribute to better breathing, improved posture and locomotion. This small but mighty anatomical feature connects the tongue activity with the relaxation of the poll, the arching of the neck, increased shoulder motion and the engagement of a whole muscle/fascia chain that connects the pectorals with the abdominal muscles and the pelvis.
  5. Horsemen have long known that the tongue’s normal function is one of the most important factors for optimizing locomotion, but it has never been attempted from outside the mouth, until the recent invention of the Patent Pending JP Com’Along Halter™. The hyoid apparatus contributes to arching the neck, allows the forelimb a greater range of motion both forward and backward, lifts and rounds the trunk in the thoracic sling, and enables the hindlimbs to come further under the body.

Background information: https://onlinepethealth.com/the-role-of-the-tongue-and-hyoid-in-movement/

VETERINARY EVALUATION OF THE COM’ALONG SYSTEM EFFECT ON EQUINE PHYSIOLOGY


From Dr. Chris Newton DVM, Partner at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital, Lexington KY.
“There is a wide acceptance that stationary cervical manipulation of the horse results in endogenous releases of endorphins and opioids. However, there is little evaluation and poor documentation of the physiological affect of dynamic cervical manipulations during training work obtained through various postures and flexions. It is well
documented that twitching, massaging, and chiropractic manipulation releases these endorphins, but it is also apparent that manipulating the upper cervical and occipital region during exercise utilizing various forms of JP Giacomini’s “Com’Along” training equipment equally stimulates a marked release of calming neurotransmitters.

Horses that exercise in this manner consistently relax, and exhibit the well-known calm behaviors such as chewing, licking, and salivating which are seen with stationary massage and manipulation. As a consequence of training in JP’s Com’Along devices on the lunge and under saddle, we have witnessed a clear improvement in the humane quality of horse training that increases the likelihood of positive behavioral patterns. This work obviously elicits this same affect as the habitual stationary cervical manipulations.

Sincerely,
Chris Newton DVM

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