All the above advice are good in my opinion, just wanted to are, if the horse is no more competing and will be ridden just for leisure, why not teach him to neck rein? It’s not difficoult (I taught to two of our horses in a couple of months) and that would put zero pressure on his face
It’s more the pressure from the face pieces that is the concern (and of course, no bit can go in his mouth at this point in his life)
It was a leather mouth piece, I’m not sure what brand but most leather bits intended for a bridle less set up are very similar.
2 Likes
Interesting set up
I lust after this one (Nalanta). I just haven’t been riding enough to justify the expenditure right now (rider very lame, horse lame, horrible air quality due to wildfire smoke, Hades-like temps). Some day.
I Have Karen Rolhf’s bitless. It is a bit big as when I got it, she only offered one size. At this point, I prefer the looks of the Nalanta. It is also less expensive even factoring in shipping than ordering the cob size from Karen.
The endurance websites have lots of mechanical hackamores with a zillion different nose bands. A little S hackamore with the right nose and would be lightweight, they offer good independent feel to the shanks without too much whoa.
1 Like
Yes! A pinwheel hackamore will work well for this issue as my mare has similar. She had 2 premolars removed and has nerve damage directly where the noseband sits on the sides (#207 & 208). A pinwheel hackamore will sit just above that area because of the straps which attach to it and raise it above the face. Photo to show how this sits.
On a side note - she will blow through a sidepull because of the pressure on the sides where the pre molars were so saying there is no pressure there is false.
The other beauty of a pinwheel hack is that there are different settings depending on which works best - only nose pressure, some pole pressure or more pole pressure. Every horse is different in what they prefer.
Thank you for this info. I’ll pass this on to my friend.
