Bitless musings

I admit that I have been known to dig gimmicks. There. It's out.

I was over at Anne-Marie's, thumbing through a Dover catalog trying to think of the best way to spend her gift certificate, and discovered this.

Very interesting.

For the sake of blog lore, Peanut has not worn a bit in over four years - not since I tried a bit on him when I first bought him. He was never ridden in it, nor ridden in a bit since. Here's what we've used so far:

The Dually Halter was the first "bridle" that I used with Peanut, and I would judge it harshest. As my first trainer said, it would stop a train.

We moved on to The Pony Boy Bitless. In my opinion it's gentler than the Dually, but it's still... harsh? Well, Peanut listens to it without question, first time, every time.

My third and final bridle is a Dr. Cook Bitless. He learned dressage in this bridle - learned to collect, bend, and all that fancy muck. He can choose to ignore it if he really wants to, but at the same time he doesn't.

What's interesting is that the Micklem uses a cross-under as the strong setting (which was shown in the catalog but isn't mentioned online), and the bridle I use is a cross-under. It almost seems like a sidepull in the milder forms, and I haven't tried one like that on Peanut. The Dually works on nose pressure alone, while the Pony Boy and the Dr. Cook ones are both cross-unders. Still, the Dually takes it to a different level with the training band and it isn't technically meant to be a bridle.

I'm not planning to get a new bridle, but it's very interesting.

I don't know what we'd approach Cheyenne with, but I've learned to never use a cross-under on a horse with anything but great teeth. It just doesn't seem to work well (it must press on hooks), so we'd have her teeth evaluated before we do anything bridle-wise just like we're having her back evaluated before we put anything on it.