German martingale on the trail

I trail ride in a GM occasionally, my mare never puts the loop of the martingale reins and I trail ride on the buckle, but for whatever reason, she is 1000x more confident with it than without. I don't always do that because I like to jump stuff I find on trail and I don't like to jump in the GM... but if I'm riding out solo or out the first time of the year, I use it with no shame :)

I compete in Endurance and my one mare who is 13 has been using a running martingale since she was 4. My other horses use regular martingales. We use them to help keep them traveling straight and not all strung out. A horse moving down the trail all strung out for 50 to 100 miles is bound to come up sore at some point. I think you should make the decision. If you think he needs the martingale then use it on trail if you just want to use it while training then use it like that. You know the horse best so at the end of the day it's your call. Have fun and be safe!

Too many holes in this horses training to be riding him out on trails to me. Use of any martingale for head tossing is wrong to begin with.

Either something is wrong with your mechanics, or former owner's or there are physical issues with horse.

But fix them, and not by using something to hide it.

Dental, saddle fit, chiro needed, horse not trained, or you are heavy handed, or jiggling reins or FO did, but whatever? Needs to be worked through, not forced into submission.