Cinch Magazine- The Great Bitless Experiment

Cinch Magazine will be pursuing the 'Great Bitless Experiment' in the summer of '09 to determine, once and for all, the effectiveness of riding bitless versus bitted. Our study will include: well-broken horses, green horses, a nervous pony and starting a horse under saddle with the bitless bridle. We will be using a variety of different riders: adults, children, begginer to advanced. If the bitless experience works out for schooling, we will also try it in the competition ring!

We will be using the Nurtural No-Bit Bridle, which is kindly being donated to us by Zoe Brooks of Nurtural Horse.

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Comment by Heather Frydendahl on September 27, 2009 at 8:19pm: Well, we have our preliminary results in. We had great success! They can be viewed from: http://cinchmagazine.com/bitlessexperiment.htm, and will be updated once again next year as we continue the experimentation and get more horses to try out the bitless on.
If anyone is interested, we will also be running a bitless bridle comparison, to be completed by late October this year. This will have more specifics on each particular bridle.

Comment by Heather Frydendahl on February 14, 2009 at 9:35am: Thanks everyone for your comments. This experiment is being conducting across Niagara, ON and we will begin its coverage on our site around the summer of '09. I will post with exact dates, closer to the time. We are very excited to be able to cover such a controversial, and so often misunderstood, subject. As always, any suggestions for our experiment are gladly considered!
You can find out more at our website, http://www.cinchmagazine.com.

Comment by Kathy Masotti on February 11, 2009 at 10:24pm: I would be very interested to see the results when they come out. I use a Dr. Cooke's bitless bridle (synthetic) and have used it for 4 years coming. My mare started to push through the bosal and after trying several bits I decided to try bitless. I can honestly say it has been the best thing I have ever done for her. She didn't even need a break in period. Her confidence level rose, no more head shaking and best of all she can focus on what I ask of her. Our relationship has improved dramatically. I am mainly a trail rider and can also ride my mare through town while bitless. I really think choosing bitless depends on the individual horses suitability (temperment,respect, trust).

Comment by Sit_the_Trot on February 10, 2009 at 12:21am: Have you seen "Adventures Unbridled" by Moyra Williams written in the 1950s about a showjumper and dressage rider and psychologist who decided to go bitless with her horses in England. It's a fascinating read. I was amazed to find it while browsing a local used bookstore.
She used drop nosebands and experimented with different signals. She really wanted to get away from any tack on the head. I use "English Bosals" which I think comes from Spain or Portugal it has a fairly stiff leather band across the nose and the bottom is a cavesson strap basically, there are rings at each side to attach the reinds and it sits where the cavesson goes. I also use rawhide bosals, I love both systems. The rawhide is used for cowboy dressage master Mike Bridges.
book is available ~$4 from Amazon

Comment by Becky on February 9, 2009 at 8:53pm: I am very interested in knowing more about bitless bridles. Where is this experiment being conducted? Looking forward to the results!