Showmanship and Biting

Question
Hi,

I am wondering if you have any advice. My sister and I show our horses who are 7 and 8 years old and brothers in western showmanship. We have been showing them in showmanship since they have been yearlings. We are both very experienced showmen but are having a difficult time with both of them biting at the lead and our hands as soon as we enter the show ring. It is constant and it affects our placings every time. Wondering if you know of any tricks to get them to stop. It seems like it is only when they get in the showring. At home they dont do it so its hard to punish them. Do you know of anything that would help stop this bad habit. They are just very mouthy horses. Always into things and always have to be doing something w/ their mouths.  

Answer
Angie,
Well, I can't tell you why they are exhibiting this behavior, but I sure can make some suggestions to help stop it.  If they only do it while in the show ring, then dress them all up, and groom them up and trailer them, to another barn or your show grounds if possible, and simulate showing them, have somebody, your parents perhaprs pretend to be judges.  As soon as they go for your hands grab them by the upper lip and hold the lip as long as you possibly can, and until your horse is very annoyed.  This will show them how much you don't appreciate their behavior by doing to them the equivalent of what they are doing.  You could also try smearing lemon juice, or cayan pepper (you can mix the powdered version with a little water to make a paste like substance to rub on your skin) on your hands, this will probably smell aweful, but one nibble of that and they should not ever do it again!  
This should help resolve the problem, just be consistant with whichever method you decide to try, and keep trying for at least 2 weeks before attempting another method, this way the horses have plenty of time to get a custom to one technique, and will by that time be learning from it!  The grabbing of the lip will take longer for them to catch on to than getting a mouth full of spicy pepper paste!
Best of luck in the show ring, I hope my suggestions are helpful, please let me know if you have any other questions.

Samantha