Some tips for riding bit-less!

[pinkponyprincess]

Hi,

I have recently just got my first horse, an 8YO 15.hh bay gelding. I have always liked the idea of riding bit-less as I feel it is more comfortable for the horse. I have had experience riding a horse bit-less before and that particular horse was absolutely super and responded really well to halting etc. My horse has been ridden in a snaffle all his life and I have started him bit-less, taking it slowly and riding at a walk etc. A few days ago I decided to take him for a trot around the arena only for him to break into canter. I tried pulling on the reins, leaning back and sitting deep in the saddle and using my voice to slow him but he kept going and so I had no choice but to point him at the fence and he skidded to a halt. I was flung forward and fell off. I really hurt my shoulder but other than that I am fine and so is he but any tips on how I could avoid this happening again in the future?

Thanks in advance

 

[Shay]

Just as a horse needs to be taught to respond to the bit in his mouth he also needs to be taught to respond to the aids from the bitless bridle you are using - which will in themselves vary from bridle type to bridle type.

If you are serious about going bitless I think you're going to need to do a lot more research, and understand why you feel this is the best solution for your horse. I've had horses both bitted and bitless so I have no issue one way or the other. There certainly are horses who go far better without a bit, or who have damage to their mouths that makes biting uncomfortable. All mine are also trained to respond to a neck rein or halter rope as I have kids who will ride with headcollars!

I guess the first step is to decide which type of bitless bridle you want to use as that will impact how you need to train. Whilst you are figuring that out start with teaching the horse to respond to a halt command either verbally or by using a neckstrap that you pull on at the same time as you give the conventional aids to halt - careful not to pull on the mouth when you do that. You need reliable brakes before you can go much further.

Once you have decided on the bridle type and tried it very carefully in a confined space then you could try working on halt aids on the lunge so someone else has ultimate control just in case. If the bridle suits and the horse is willing it doesn't take long to get them to accept it.

Do bear in mind some types of bitless bridles can be very harsh in unskilled hands - just as some bits can be! Also there are limitations on what competitions and events you can do bitless. It would be worth getting help from a sympathetic instructor.

 

[Moomin1]

How did your showjumping go OP?

 

[gnubee]

Bitless is not necessarily more comfortable to the horse. It very much depends how and why you are going bitless. If you are yanking on a hackamore, it is certainly not more gentle than yanking on a snaffle. Conversly, if you have no contact on the reins then a horse that is accustomed to having a bit in its mouth wont feel any more or less comfortable in wearing a snaffle bridle and wearing a hackamore.
One of my horses hates mouth pressure, so currently she is ridden bitless. She has always been schooled that way, and is very responsive to leg and weight aids. She will slow or halt off a voice command. For that reason, she is ridden in a scawbrigg which I would consider very mild, probably a 0.5 of severity on scale to 10 in which a properly used snaffle bridle is a 1. Clearly if I wanted to compete this would not be competition legal and I would need to teach her to accept something stronger. Similarly, I dont feel like it gives me significantly more in the way of "emergency brakes" than being bridleless, so if I ever took her hacking on the roads etc. there is no way I would consider it responsible to take her out in that.
My other horse is ridden in a snaffle. She frequently has a mind of her own and needs persuading to listen. It would take a significant amount of reschooling to put her in something as mild as the scawbrigg. The snaffle bridle is about as mild as she can go, and if I wanted to go bitless on her for some reason I would use some kind of mechanical hackamore. To my mind, this would not be any more comfortable for her than the snaffle.
If she was too strong to go in a snaffle bit and needed something more severe, I would probably feel like the way I had to use the hackamore to replicate a similar level of pressure would actually make the hackamore less comfortable than the corresponding bit. There are people who use hackamores in that kind of situation where a horse isnt responding well to the strong bit, but if the horse works well in the bit then I would not expect that the hackamore would be more comfortable.

So having said all that, and assuming that you dont want to carry out extensive reschooling (though as Shay points out, at least some level of retraining will be required to teach the horse what the signals mean in your new system) you need to assess what kind of bitless bridle will suit your horse. Consider what activities you want to do bitless (competing, in which case there are restrictions on what you can use, riding out in which case you need to make sure there is sufficient severity available even if not regularly used to act as emergency brakes etc.). What pressure does your horse need? What is your level of riding skill in using your other aids on him? The fact that he escalated a trot to a canter without you asking and wouldnt come down off a voice aid says to me that currently one of those factors makes your set up unsuitable for a very mild bitless bridle.

All the things you said you tried to do to slow him sound correct, but it would appear he hasnt been trained to listen to them without the aid of a bit. I would suggest that before you try bitless again, you work on riding without your reins (either holding the buckle or knotting them on the neck) with your instructor to clarify all these aids you want the horse to understand. Doing these exercises with the bit in that the horse understands means you can regain control of the situation if needed before either you or the horse get hurt.

 

[gnubee]

Forgot to add, in choosing a bitless bridle, you also need to consider very carefully what kind of pressure your horse will respond to. The reason I picked Scawbrigg for mine is that she freaks out at anything even approaching poll pressure (we are working on it for sanity's sake, but it would be a rubbish choice of bridle to make her feel more comfortable) and she tends to over react to nose pressure, so would have needed a lot of work to not just come to a dead halt from anything that uses nose pressure as a key component. This made the choice pretty easy for me in many ways, cos it eliminated all the crossunder types and hackamore types. If she still had all those issues and needed something stronger than I am currently using though. i would be pretty much out of options and would have had to train her through her response to nose pressure (or perhaps more simply train her through her response to mouth pressure and go back to using a bit)

 

[pinkponyprincess]

thanks for all your replies! I have been doing some research and I am still not sure which bit-less bridle to use on my horse. I wasn't aware of how many specially designed bitless bridles there are! I have been using my horse's own bridle with the bit taken out but after your suggestions I am thinking of dr cook?? are these any good? Are they very pricey? He just seems to fight the pressure and stick his head out and fly off. How can I get him to listen to me? He also does this in hand sometimes on the way to the field. He just puts walks off and gets faster and faster until I cannot pull his head anymore and have to let him go. Is this anything to do with it?

My competition went well. We didn't get placed but I am happy with how I did. We had one refusal and 8 faults. I managed to stay on and he listened well I think!!

 

[applecart14]

Hi,

I have recently just got my first horse, an 8YO 15.hh bay gelding. I have always liked the idea of riding bit-less as I feel it is more comfortable for the horse. I have had experience riding a horse bit-less before and that particular horse was absolutely super and responded really well to halting etc. My horse has been ridden in a snaffle all his life and I have started him bit-less, taking it slowly and riding at a walk etc. A few days ago I decided to take him for a trot around the arena only for him to break into canter. I tried pulling on the reins, leaning back and sitting deep in the saddle and using my voice to slow him but he kept going and so I had no choice but to point him at the fence and he skidded to a halt. I was flung forward and fell off. I really hurt my shoulder but other than that I am fine and so is he but any tips on how I could avoid this happening again in the future?

Thanks in advance

Do you have a dually? You might find that the nose pressure from this is sufficient. I ride my horse in a dually and he works very well in it, long and low and really pushes himself along nicely.

When he has a bit in he is the exact opposite.

 

[chestnut cob]

He also does this in hand sometimes on the way to the field. He just puts walks off and gets faster and faster until I cannot pull his head anymore and have to let him go. Is this anything to do with it?

TBH it sounds to me like he's having you on a bit and taking the pee rather than being in pain. I think he's testing you out, seeing what he can get away with. He has learned that he can drag you around on the ground by the sounds of it. I would deal with this issue first - do you have a good instructor who could give you some handling lessons on the ground? If you allow him to get his own way and drag you around like this, it could end up in quite a dangerous situation. Resolve the leading first, then think about ridden work.

Do you have ridden lessons? If you are going to take him bitless then you will need lessons for you both, I think, to learn how to do it. You are going to have to teach him how to go without a bit.

 

[twiggy2]

thanks for all your replies! I have been doing some research and I am still not sure which bit-less bridle to use on my horse. I wasn't aware of how many specially designed bitless bridles there are! I have been using my horse's own bridle with the bit taken out but after your suggestions I am thinking of dr cook?? are these any good? Are they very pricey? He just seems to fight the pressure and stick his head out and fly off. How can I get him to listen to me? He also does this in hand sometimes on the way to the field. He just puts walks off and gets faster and faster until I cannot pull his head anymore and have to let him go. Is this anything to do with it?

My competition went well. We didn't get placed but I am happy with how I did. We had one refusal and 8 faults. I managed to stay on and he listened well I think!!

so what do you attach the reins to?

 

[pinkponyprincess]

Thanks.

I attached rope to the cheek piece's for reins to start off but not that others have made me more aware of specialised bitless bridles, I think I will invest in a dr cook or else put the bit back onto his bridle. As far as the ground work is concerned, I think he is just having a joke, he really is very good and wouldn't try me like that. I also may get a few lessons for when I am jumping some more but since I am now at a private yard, I haven't had any since I had a few before I got him.

Thanks again