On Sat, Dec 15, 2007 at 09:41:12AM -0800, Nancy Sturm wrote: > So years ago, I went out on trail with a very green thorouhbred mare, one of > her first outings away from the riding ring. The headstall broke and the > bit dropped out of her mouth and I was left with a simple headstall and no > reins for a moment. Being essentially lazy, I didn't want to walk home, so > I attached the reins to the headstall, put the bit in my pocekt and rode her > on home. The interesting thing to me was that she was very little different > bitless than she was with my all-time favorite security blanket bit. It was > a nice object lesson for me at the time.
*nods* i had a similar object lesson from one of my students, who while tacking up said "what if we didn't put on the bridle?" we attached reins to stjarni's halter, and although he is anything but a green tb mare he too was still very much like himself even w/o his bridle and full-cheek french-link bit. i now do halter-and-reins lessons now and then with all my students who ride stjarni. at some point i'll get up the guts to try it with the student with the crazy old quarab -- i'm sure *he* has the guts to do it, he's a fantastic rider and very brave, but speaking as his instructor i'm not sure *i'm* ready to watch that yet :) --vicka
