Yes, Vicka, that is also my experience. I used to take lessons from a woman who was very successful starting and showing Western pleasure and reigning horses. She rode them all in a plain snaffle, then slipped the required Western bit in a few days before a show. Directly afterward, they went back to the snaffle.
With that as an example, when our grandson wanted to show in the Western pleasure class in the 4-H division at the County Fair (using a horse he also entered in dressage and hunter over fences), we continued to school with the snaffle and just put a Western style curb bit on a few days before the show. He won his class, but the horse was never ridden "Western" again. He also did very well over fences and had a nice scorew on his dressage test. Good horsemanship is good horsemanship. On working cattle ranches, cowboys learned to ride with one hand, usually the left, because they needed their other hand for roping. You can still see roping competitions on RFDTV, but not many of us will ever be in a situation where we need to wield a rope. Nancy
