Bits or Bitless: Does it matter to the horse?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ก.พ. 2025
- Bits or Bitless? Is this really the right question... the right debate, argument, battle to be having?
What do the Intrinzen principles tell us about bits vs. bitless?
I'll answer that in this video.
Something important I left out - and should have included - is the impact of a tight noseband in both bitless and bitted bridles.
Even the “wide soft gentle sidepull” I advocate for can still potentially create problems for the horse if the noseband is too tight. But the whole issue of how bits interact with noseband is not an area I want to discuss.
But it was a mistake on my part to NOT mention that even the softest bitless bridle can still create problems. Just… it’s far easier to hurt a horse using most bits than a gentle sidepull.
When I say “gentle”, I mean there’s nothing in the noseband to make it more “effective” (e.g. metal).
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If you watched the whole video, then you know why I don’t think bits vs. bitless is the most useful discussion. I would PREFER we discuss the training practices that make both bits and bitless bridles a problem…
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What I forgot to add: from a pain science POV, then the argument of “which part of the head is more sensitive” is also missing the point, as we now know that pain does not actually *come* from the tissues. Pain is a response from the brain, generated by many factors of which nociception is only *one* aspect. Threats, fear, excessive pressure, lack of self-efficacy, perceived lack of control, psychological and social wellbeing (or lack of) and overall quality of cortical maps all contribute to the nervous system “decision” to generate a pain response.
Oversimplified version: if the horse is struggling, resisting, stiffening, bracing, spooking, bolting, “lazy/not responsive” are ALL signs of a pain response. Every. Time.
Only a few minutes into the video, but the gap between what people SAY and what people DO is so true and SO FRUSTRATING!! I'm autistic so when people say things I assume that they, you now, MEAN IT but no, it's like there's this whole other language they're speaking! Not specifically related to this but a lot of groundwork instructors talk about how they never force a horse to do anything, they just 'raise their energy' - never with any actual clear instruction as to what 'raising energy' entails - so then they demonstrate, and they FORCE THE HORSE TO DO IT! But they renamed it, so it's all good now?? Argh!
Great talk. I agree, if we can only train without restriction, we will have evolved to a far better place. Let's give it a try! Just got my bitless. Very excited to train with it
I like to ride with a soft neckrope, as my horse has a very sensitive face and makes faces whenever he's wearing a halter or a sidecue.
I own an 18 yr. old Haflinger gelding who was owned and ridden (occasionally) by a not so knowledgeable young woman who used a Mikmar curb bit on him because he would take off with her. I am doing a lot of ground work and have bought him a Mickleim combination bridle in hopes of getting him to where I can ride him bitless.
One of the parts of this video I had to cut out is exactly why I think the Micklem is a *great* way to transition from but to bitless (and exactly what I did). I don’t think you will need to “hope” 🤗… I have no doubts you will make this transition. For my personal riding horses, I used the Micklem with the bit clips attached. But even without them, another way to do it is use two sets of reins… one attached normally to the bit, one in the noseband. I would tie a knot in the but reins and leave them loose at the horse’s withers, riding only from the reins attached to the noseband. The bit reins were still there if I thought I needed them. Then gradually when I knew I was riding only from the noseband reins, I just stopped using the bit. The Micklem really makes this easy.
Klaus Hempfling wrote a book called 'Dancing with Horses, collection on a loose rein'.
He’s amazing. And there are lots of individuals who do work in self-carriage without ever using restraint. But they are still the exception. Almost all mainstream horsemanship domains train for self-carriage using drive and restrain.
@12:05 This is the question I have. If a western horse can work under from behind on a loose rein, no mater if it is a curb, snaffle, hackamore etc. Why do the English disciplines require slack to be removed from the reins in order to be considered contact? The horse doesn't need to have tight reins to control the shoulders, haunches or whatever. One thing is for sure, if you do have tight reins and you get the balance wrong in the reins and you don't give or throw away the contact at the wrong moment the horse gets off balance because you put him there.
As you said, the rider is attempting to manage the horses balance from the saddle, and for what reason? TO FIX SHORT COMINGS IN THE HORSES FITNESS.
When ridden with a short rein the horse starts leaning on the bit and when the contact is gone they stumble. They learn to pull on your hands because everyone else who rode the horse before you had to have hands of steal to keep the horse from running away. If you decide to ignore your trainer and ride with a dip in the rein the horse is either rushing or not working from behind. So you shorten the reins like your trainer tells you (IE PULL THE NOSE IN) and 'push' the horse into the bit the back goes hollow and the trainer tells you to wrap your legs around the horses belly and encourage the horse to work over the back. Next think you know you have a race horse because horses want to lean into the bit pressure and go faster not move off of it.
As for rein pressure my trainer says imagine you have a baby bird in your hand, who else has been told that? It's silly advice because I have handled baby birds and adults birds, which are more difficult because they aren't as 'dense'. I know what that is like and its nothing like what they actually have me do, close my fingers to my hand (WHAT?? how can I squeeze for reins aids if my finger nails are touching my palms). The next thing they say is my thumbs are not tight enough. All these issues would go away if we worked on our horses anxiety so we didn't have to worry about reins getting ripped form our hands and the horses taking off.
All these problems because this sort of contact allows for hiding other problems. If there is a real reason it's been lost to time because of all the short cuts people have made for themselves.
Yes, I think you described a lot of the problem with how too many people use bits 🤷🏼♀️. There are at least *some* classical riding “schools” that don’t ride with direct contact, because they make be to curb bits. Academic Art of Riding uses a cavessson instead of snaffle, before progressing to a curb bit which they ride with slack.
And when I first began competing in Icelandic sport, everyone agreed that if you ride with the Icelandic curb bit, you never ever use direct contact. But at the same time, sooooo many people treated like simply a stronger-than-snaffle way to make up for poor training 😢
Dear Kathy,
thank you for the video! It is so hard to question everything. Still I am very grateful for you showing and explaning your way of living with horses. It is a pleasure to see Draumur and the others move and have fun - and to see you move and have fun, too. Luckily I have found a riding instructor that is focusing a lot on my seat right now, helping my mare and me leave a bad cycle of stress by learning to stop from voice cues and change/ keep direction via my balance in the saddle influencing her - thus ideally not needing the reigns for either. She has a lot of toelt and the people partnering her happily don't teach their horses to toelt by pulling on their reigns but by the way they sit compared to how they sit for trot (I was taught the pulling way, which resultet in me next to never toelting my previous horse because I did not want to do that...).
To the bit/bitless thing: I really like to be trailriding and I have been strongly taught that control is important for that - I still agree but I noticed lately how much of that control could maybe (probably) be reached by other means like being in close sync with a horse that is actually listening to me/ with me, not just carrying me in a straight line except I pull on the reigns (placatively said). Still I am not sure how comfortable I will ever be riding outside the paddock with only a neck reign. So I either choose a bitless bridle or one with a bit. Personally I really liked the idea of riding bitless - in theory. Trying it out I noticed however that most bitless bridles (including sidepulls) are limiting the horses ability to move its jaw - just like the nose stuff of ordinary bridles with bits does (and I really hate seeing horses with their mouth forcibly closed!). The alternate being a loose halter or something like a bosal tends to move around a lot, irritating at least some horses. So in my impression both my previous gelding and my mare may not love the bit but they take it in just fine without pressuring them on it while shaking their heads/ looking distinctly unhappy when I close the snaps of a side-pull etc. So for now I am staying with a simple bit without any extra stuff. To me it feels like it annoys them least (just beeing there).
Still I don't know where we will go, maybe we will find a better solution in time.
Sorry for the long comment, just got me thinking.
btb she loves intrinzen, two days ago she basically taught herself to walk BACKWARDS towards me (we hat been training sideways a bit) and would prefer to only walk like (or sideways) that now :-D I really have to go crazy to get her to face me and walk forwards even a few steps (in her opinion it's so boring!)
It’s wonderful that you found such a thoughtful and caring instructor 🙏😍. If more people were focused on riding from subtle seat and leg cues, weight shifts, etc. and only riding movements the horse was already capable of doing without “help” in the face, ridden horses would all be so much happier and healthier 🤗
Hello, I was doing some research on bits a little while ago, and while the research isn’t solid, I was wondering if you have considered the relationship of bits and the respiratory system? Thank you for the video, presenting findings like these is extremely important.
There’s research that strongly suggests bits can compromise breathing, yes. It’s not an overwhelming finding, yet, but there just IS NOT much research on these topics (a whole other problem… a lot of research on equine respiration is funded by racing industry, and ofc they are studying very different things).
I think what’s important today is the bits/breathing issues are not just coming from Dr. Cook. A lot of his work has been ignored because of a possible conflict of interest (I don’t believe that implicitly disqualified his work, but it caused people to ignore it).
But today there’s been a few other researchers and institutions raising questions about compromised breathing. My feeling is, even if nothing else mattered in the bits/bitless debate, that alone would stop me from using one.
And I’m truly surprised more sport performance people have not taken this seriously… even if they don’t care about ethical debates, why would you do something that *might* reduce performance? Even if there’s only a slight chance there’s something serious happening, why take that risk?
(And to add, again, I think the research IS getting more substantial, just in the last 3 years or so. I think too many people just dismissed Cook’s work on this, and then they never looked again at whether there’s new work *and* new reviews of existing work on bits/breathing. Thanks for bringing this up. I didn’t address it because I wanted to make a different point about not *needing* to use bits. But I’m honestly distressed by how mainstream, normalized bits are. )
Thank you very much. I have a 4 and five year Welsh pony of cob type. I am about to train them for buliding their body up to get ready to ride. The things your say i so right. That is my way.❤
I wish more riders would see this video. And question what a bit does to the mouth of the horse. I just see it as a pain device.
I agree. I know a few people who *can* ride kindly with a bit, but these are also the people who don’t need a bit so…. Why?? But nearly everyone (myself included) is almost certainly going to cause pain no matter how skillful and caring. It is simply the nature of having something in their *mouth*.
It’s so sad because none of this - bits or bitless - would be an issue if people stopped pressuring the horse’s head 😢
I wish everyone who rides a horse would watch this video!!
What do you think of a western bosal? I don't understand the mechanics of those, but have always wondered.
They can be used quite harshly, but most people don’t. They are *only* for horses already in self-carriage, but I think they can be used well by skillful people *or* those on a well-moving horse who are committed to keeping lots of slack in the rein. But I don’t know how most of them are made today. They can put a LOT of pressure on the face if they are heavy or used with contact, so it really depends on how it’s made…
Do you use a particular side pull?
@@robinkeeton1511 I use different ones, but I like the Alizee Mistral (the stuff the one in the thumbnail of this video). But the last few months I’ve been riding with just a neck rope. I don’t usually ride bridleless but decided to start my youngster without reins for now. But really, any soft sidepull I like. Thinline even makes a noseband that lets you convert any normal bitted bridle into a sidepull.
What bit-less bridalwerer
Were you using?
@@gailmadsenclayton1769 hi there! I have 3 shown in this video, but *mostly* I am using the FRA Alizee Mistral sidepull (it will come up on a Google search). It is from Europe, but I was able to purchase it from the U.S. and it is my personal favorite. But I have many different sidepulls. One really nice thing - and less expensive - is to buy a special noseband from ThinLine that will allow a “normal” bit bridle to act as a sidepull. Instead of attaching cheek piece to a bit, you put it through the loops of the ThinLine noseband (which is a nice, soft noseband).
I dont drive with brakes....😂