[Luna’s rider]

I think you don't always have the presence of mind in that sort of a situation to plan where your hands will go. As long as you don't make a big deal out of it; not a lot of patting and talkiing and stopping to talk about it. Just get on about what you were doing as soon as you can. Your horse will forget and forgive any jerk on his mouth if you release soon and get his feet moving so that any anxiety can be physically dispelled.

Good point - we ride bitless so the worse has happened to his nose. He was on high alert yesterday for some reason - we were 5 horses in the class.

 

[Luna’s rider]

Fair enough. I might overthinking this. He also gave me a little crow hop much later in the ride for waving my crop at him to get a canter - he was very sensitive this week!