Ever since I discovered that bitless bridles exist, I have been very interested in them. When I was little and taking riding lessons with other children, I watched other kids steer their horses by yanking the reins. I saw the reactions the horses gave them: tossing heads and pinned ears, turning quickly and tightly to escape the pain. I was always afraid of doing that to the horse I was riding, so I didn't do a very good job steering a lot of the time. While my heart may have been in the right place, I didn't understand the difference between appropriate pressure and excessive pressure, so I did not progress very much in my ability to communicate with my horse.
Now that I'm older, I understand this better. It is entirely possible to ride with a bit and be gentle. But - you have to have the skill to do it. And your horse needs to be trained sufficiently to understand what you are asking. Between me and Talana, we have enough rusty spots in our training that I can't say for certain that I wouldn't accidentally yank on her mouth. The idea of trying to re-teach her that riding can be fun and gentle while having something in her mouth that with the simplest error on my part can cause her pain in a delicate place... I just don't like that idea.
So, the thought that I can do the same things except without a bit really appeals to me. I thought at least we'd give it a try and see what she thinks. After all, if she's happy enough to do what I ask with no bit, why do I need one? For the basic things I'm asking her to do - walk, trot, back, go around this obstacle or that - we probably don't need the minute finesse of a direct line from my fingers to her mouth.
Another thing that appeals to me is simple tack that I can understand. A nice thing about a sidepull is that it's basically a halter. I know how those work, and I understand how I'm putting pressure on her, and where, when I tug on different parts of it. That helps me feel more confident and secure in my movements, because I am not concerned with accidentally hurting her.
It's such a simple piece of tack, in fact, that I can make them myself. I found a tutorial with pictures online, and set to work with some rope I got to play around with. It takes a lot of rope to make a halter! They recommend 18 feet. I'm not sure exactly how much I used to make Talana's, but it was at least that much. The rope I used was fairly soft and wide. It's not that thin stuff that I see on most rope halters, but that's ok. This one is a test run anyway, and I wasn't even sure it would work.
It only took me three hours to end up with a serviceable halter, however. I added loops on the nose knots so that I can attach reins made from the same rope. And I went right outside and put it on Talana to see how it worked.
It worked! Talana has now gotten so used to it that she puts it on herself if I hold the noseband open for her. She seems cheerful about it each time. And she's taking direction from it very well. It took her five or ten minutes to get the hang of how the different cues feel, but after that she seems happy with it. It seems to be soft enough over her nose because the rope I used is so thick. I may still put padding there when I start riding her around for longer periods of time.
Hooray! I will probably try to get some pictures of it to post so that you can see what it looks like. I think it's not the nicest looking thing ever, but it works well enough for me.
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