I occasionally ride my mare in a rope halter in the ring, especially when I’ve taken my bridle home to clean and forget to bring it back! Mare loves those rides!
That got me thinking of trying to school dressage in a bitless bridle, but I don’t understand how it could work since we constantly communicate through the bit…
What do you all think?
I’ve done it with a flat leather halter on my last horse, and do it with a hackamore on my current horse. It demands more self carriage from the horse and discipline from the rider. It is tempting to try and hold some kind of contact but that tends to make the horse lean and you lose communication anyway.
On the aids.
The bit is just one little part of the combination.
The throughness surely can be attain.
I don’t like the Dr.Cook or the like, but a real hackamore or nothing/cordeo is suffisant.
Its possible to ride dressage bitless or even no bridle if the horse is already trained to be ridden off weight and leg aids. But I don’t think you can train to that level easily without a bridle.
The horse would already need a level of self carriage. It wouldn’t work if you were at a stage of using maximum rein and leg aids to be “round.”
On a whim, I recently switched to bitless for training and found absolutely no difference – if anything she was more sensitive to rein aids. Not what I expected. YMMV
I believe you can ride bitless in western dressage, no? And when you go up in the western dressage levels and start showing in a curb with romal reins, the horse is basically going with self-carriage, since you have to ride one-handed and can’t keep the same amount of contact.
Yes, in Western riding you can train up a horse to go nicely in a bosal, which is a bitless but uses leverage, before you move to a curb. But the contact and rein aids are different from typical English dressage.
The bosal actually does not produce any leverage. There is nothing for it to leverage against. It tilts and shifts on the nose, but it can’t produce leverage like a shanked hackamore that applies leveraged pressure around the jaw. It is a signaling device and can produce fantastic results in the right hands.
The rope halter functions a little like a bosal, but it doesn’t hold its shape nearly so well or provide much spring to return to shape. The bosal, rope halter, and shanked hackamores are not designed to maintain contact, but in the case of the bosal you don’t really have to pick up full on straight-reined contact in order to communicate.
There are bitless designs that are more conducive to contact. The ones I most often see for Dressage outside of a sidepull are the wheel hacks, also called “bitless bits” such as the LG Zaum, Orbitless, Flower, and Star Wheel. They have multiple slots that allow for settings from sidepull (direct nasal pressure) to mild and moderate leverage. I haven’t used these much yet, but have started our yearling on the long lines a little with a Star Wheel.
I personally like continuous rein cross-unders. Somewhat like the Dr. Cooks, but instead of the ring to connect your reins to the reins form a continuous line with no interruption. You can pick up and work a contact, get reasonable feedback from the horse. I find my crew are more forgiving of mistakes bitless, more freely forward, and if there is a differing of opinion it is less frantic or explosive tban with a bit.
There are also scawbrigs, like the LightRider that use pressure from a “floating” strap on the chin groove initially before engaging nasal pressure.
There is one design that is touted essentially as a double bridle that has a sidepull and the scawbrig built into it working as the snaffle and curb respectively.
There are a whole lot more options to riding bitless than there used to be!
I like riding bitless and feel like I get a good response from my horses and no real need for the bit other than the fact that USDF insists that it is needed to qualify in competition.
I’d love to see USDF and the FEI both to realize that the horse really should be “on the aids” over “on the bit.” Working Equitation allows for bitless riding in all phases, even the Dressage. Other countries’ national organizations appear to be moving towards allowing bitless riding too, the Dutch being the most prominent.
In short: Yes! You can do Dressage (well!) bitless!
I agree horses often go better bitless and that a lot of problems are created by hard hands on bits.
I don’t love the cross under bridles I’ve seen only because the strap doesn’t seem to release promptly enough.
I’m not familiar with the wheel hacks but will look them up. I like the idea of being able to change the rein slot.
I’ve swapped all my lesson horses to bitless for that. Students can use a bit once their hands are soft and sympathetic!
The problem with 99% of the cross-unders out there is the use of rings to attach the reins. The weight of the ring plus the end of the reins attaching to it is much heavier than the strap that crosses under the jaw and gravity does the rest, holding the pressure rather than springing back. The Nurtural has its circle-x that acts as both a stabilizer and counter-weight so the release is better, but I still can’t get over going from a loose rein to contact as I still have to pick up the ring before I feel the horse’s face. I’ve also had issues with the rings tapping a horse on the jaw (gaited horse, lots of head nodding) even when set properly. The continuous rein design, which eliminates the ring attachment, releases MUCH better. I’ve had a lot of success with them.
I’m currently working our yearling (long lining, obviously) in the Star Wheel to see how it goes. So far so good. Eventually I’ll pester one of the others with it, but they all are going well in what they currently use so it is a little bit of a “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” position. I’d like to try the Orbitless too as it has eight slots instead of six so it gives more options.
An excellent training exercise for the rider is to ride reinless in an arena. The rider then must learn to use their seat and legs ride their geometric figures accurately. It is also a good idea to start on the longe, reinless, and learn to do transitions within, and between the gaits.
Riders who work at it will find how little they actually need the reins, except sometimes to correct flexion. They also can prove to themselves how unnecessary reins are to achieve engagement.
Unfortunately, you cannot show that way. 
We do not show that way as the bit especially in the double bridle show the flaws of the rider. The judges need something to judge. The bits make it easier for them to judge. When you have 30 horses going pretty flawlessly you need sonething to put them in the correct order.
I’m pretty sure that the bit(s) is(are) there to communicate with the horse and not to show off how bad a rider’s hands are, but maybe that is just my perspective. One of the things I think is fantastic about Dressage is the judge(s) aren’t ranking the riders against each other. They are scoring each individual ride and not having to glance around as 30 horses do walk-trot-canter on an oval. There are plenty of things to judge in a Dressage test whether the horse has a bit or not.
Contact can happen bitless, just as a horse can be on the aids bitless. A horse can also be braced, tense, and against the hand bitless. While bad hands may not result in as dramatic a response as when bitted, the horse will still protest improper use of the rein aids. Several countries have allowed bitless riding at the national level and the very foundations of Dressage have not crumbled into oblivion and I haven’t heard of judges being unable to score the tests.
I had a horse that really hated bits – small mouth with a low palate and a thick tongue. He was very through and steady in my hands using one of the wheel hackamores. I used the LG with him. As soon as I started using it, he started jumping a lot better and I realized that I must have been picking at him going into fences. Muting my hands helped a lot! I have a flower hack that I use with my mare sometimes as I find it good for me because it makes me ride her off my seat and legs more. My OTTB? We’ve never gotten to the point where I could switch him over for anything more than a hack.
My horses can all go bitless but I use bits for my more focused schooling rides simply because I was never able to find a dressage trainer who would teach me with a bitless. It’s certainly possibile though. I was very surprised the day I came back from a hack on my young horse in the bitless and he had the lipstick foam commonly associated with chewing on the bit.
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