>From Rebecca (who also does rhythm beads, see her site below): I've used a Dr. Cook's bitless, non-mechanical hackamores, sidepulls and a custom-made bosal/sidepull "hybrid" that I got from Lodge Ropes (based in Australia). I've found the basic sidepull functionality to work the best for my horse and me. The concept of the Dr. Cook's is nice, and it does work for some people successfully, but there have been comments about the release not being sufficient when using the ones made of Beta. I personally didn't notice this; my compaint with it was more that the signals from the reins seemed to me to be pretty vague (because the pressure is applied over such a broad area). One question that is asked regularly about bitless bridles is, "Will it stop my horse?".. The basic answer to this is that if you require a bit or mechanical hackamore in order to stop your horse, then it is probably not a good idea to be riding that horse under circumstances where you think you might have a runaway situation. Pulling back on both reins to stop a horse is a Very Bad Idea, and I have found through personal experience that once a horse is in full flight mode, no bridle - bitted or not - is going to stop him. You're best off trying to ride it out (less likely to get injured if you stay on) or performing an emergency dismount, and working on the one rein stop (on a regular basis, until it becomes reflex for your horse) once you get back home. I'm actually working on a bitless bridle design at the moment - but I'm still refining the design, so it may be a few weeks or even months before I'm happy with the prototype. Sincerely,
Rebecca -- http://www.ElatedEquine.com
