The photo: Oliver has a rope style bitless bridle which was the easiest at the time for his giant head. Bobby has a soft biothane one from Cynthia at Natural Horse World that you can just chuck in a bucket to clean and he also has a bitless attachment for his good silver bridle. You can attach whatever kind of reins you like to them – Oliver has such a long length of rein, specially when he has his head down to graze, that Steve uses a soft 16 foot rope as reins.
The Lesson
Although I have very clear personal preferences, I don’t need to get into the debate about bitted and bitless bridles in these lessons.
It’s between you and your horse at the level of connection you are at together.
By this stage in your Program, with your connection with your horse and your awareness and specially by the time you finish this lesson, you will have no doubt about what is or what is not OK with your horse in relation to bridles in your unique circumstances.
I could also talk about great amounts of stuff that I have learned about different bits and the nosebands and tie downs that I used back in the very early old days to compensate for the effects of those bits. But again, I think that will distract you from listening to your horse.
One thing that I would like to bring to your attention if you are using a bitted bridle, is the position of the bit in the mouth. I was initially taught that the bit was in the right position when there are two wrinkles in each side of the mouth.
What a load of old hooha… It seems crazy to me that we should pull the bit up so tight and then ask them for softness and sensitivity in communication.
I think that you will notice as you go on with your Fast Track, that all the reasons for positioning a bit jammed up in the mouth are invalid. Relaxed horses, happy with their gear, don’t put their tongue over the bit and even if that did happen – you don’t pull on your horse with two reins to stop anyway, so it wouldn’t matter if they did.
As with everything – listen to your horse and your own Not Quite Rights to make up your own mind.
Here’s the first part of your lesson
Listen inside yourself, listening to your horse carefully at all stages of putting your bridle or bitless bridle or riding halter on. Advance and retreat, paying attention to Not Quite Right, backing off and waiting for The Chew in order to release whatever old emotional baggage is being brought up by just putting the bridle on.
To help with this, you can review the lesson about the same task in a halter.
You’ve got the three stages again with the bridle:
1. RELEASE any old stresses around a bridle, which will usually take a longer time for your horse to chew.
2. RE-LEARN having the bridle on in their Comfort Zone.
3. RE-PROGRAM the bridle on, happily in their Comfort Zone on AUTO-PILOT.
And now for the second part
Then, using your bridle or whatever you are going to ride in, review the lesson about soft communication in the halter. Whereas this lesson is about getting soft communication stepping backwards and to the right and to the left, in the bridle.
The idea is to release any resistance or frights or trauma or general emotional baggage about being asked to do things with this equipment and most importantly for your horse to have a clear understanding about what you are looking for when you ask for something with the rein in the same position as it would be if you were riding.
Don’t forget the rotations of your body and meet and melt if you meet any resistance as you look for backwards and stepping to the left and right. (Don’t worry about doing forwards from the bridle on the ground, the feel doesn’t translate into your ridden work. Here’s the lesson about meet and melt.
In addition to the same movements you used to get soft in the halter, I would like you to add a small movement of the head down and a small movement of the nose softening towards the chest, using the rein from the direction that you would be using it in the saddle.
Cynthia Cooper’s bitless bridle, from naturalhorseworld.com, is the only one I have seen so far that allows you to elevate your horse’s front end, something that I consider essential for clear communication with the reins. It also releases cleanly and easily after using the rein and is clear and direct in its signal to the horse.
Cynthia also has this neat little gadget she calls a Bitless Noseband, that converts your best bridle into a bitless bridle cheaply and effectively.
If anyone knows of another brand of bitless bridle that doesn’t pull the horses head down with the action of the reins, then email me and maybe send me a photo or video of it on your horse for me to see. I would be happy to note other useful brands here too.
Click here to go to Cynthia’s website.