Bridling with David Stuart

This article is from the December 2020 Horse Deals magazine.

David lives on his family’s cattle station in Central Queensland, Australia and has over 25 years of experience. From starting young horses and dealing with horses with behavioural issues to teaching people the foundations of horsemanship. With a huge amount of experience working with horses and people all over the world, David has visited the continents of Australasia, North America, Europe, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. This has involved helping amateurs, professionals and professional organisations within the equestrian industry, enabling them to become safer and more competent around horses, giving them a foundation to build on. David’s expertise has been showcased throughout the world at international shows and events, including: to the Dubai Royal Family, Burghley Horse Trials (5 star, premier 3 day international event), Horse of the Year Show, Your Horse Live, The British Horse Society’s annual spring instructor conference and Equitana Asia Pacific.

It does not matter what discipline or what horse you have, bridling your horse has caused many issues for riders. From horses not lowering their heads to being head shy or not accepting of the snaffle. While this article may not address every bridling issue, hopefully it will go some way towards helping both horses and riders with bridling.

Often on courses, many horse owners or riders say I only have this issue with my horse. With a few further questions, you can find out that there are often quite a few more issues. My approach to many of these situations is not to get too direct about it, as other things get better, the original challenge often improves or is no longer an issue.

Many riders now appreciate that if they improve their horsemanship, their horse also improves. Rather than blaming the horse, try and understand from their perspective first. Knowing that horses by nature are prey animals and their main means of defence is flight, equally if that is not available that may turn to fight.

Developing the horses’ self-confidence is a great place to start when riders are having issues with their horses. Regardless of whether it is a bridling issue or saddling etc. There are many ways you can help to develop your horses’ self-confidence. An easy place to start is, can you rub your horse all over? Many horses will have places where they will allow you to rub them and other places where they will not.

Your horse should be confident with you rubbing or touching around their mouth, head and ears for bridling. If your horse is unconfident in these areas a technique called approach and retreat can be used. This is where you start at a place where your horse is confident with you touching, rubbing and then approach the area that they are not as confident and then retreating again before the horse takes fright.

When I am bridling a horse for the first time, I will often leave the halter on and have the horse lower their head and bring their head towards me. After bridling, I will then take my halter off from underneath my bridle by taking the noseband of the halter off my horse’s nose and feeding it back through the mouth and back behind the snaffle and then back out the mouth again. This allows me to have a little more control over bridling my horse, particularly when it is for the first time.

When bridling your horse, the way you hold your bridle and present it to your horse will have a lot to do with your success. The image on the left shows how I like to hold my bridle. When I am bridling a horse, if I have a loop rein, or often I use a mecate, I hold the rein with my right hand, so if my horse were to pull away my tack would not get damaged or end up around my horse’s legs.

In a young horse that has not had a snaffle before, I may have the bit hung a little higher to make it a little harder for the horse to get the tongue over the bit. As the horse wears the bit with more confidence then I will lower the bit encouraging the horse to pick the bit up. With some horses that are reluctant to open their mouths for the snaffle, you may have to work their gums with your fingers to encourage them to open their mouths. You can sometimes put molasses or honey on your snaffle as well. Over time you would like to have your horse to where they are almost hunting the bit when you are bridling.

For young horses, the bit that I like to use is an eggbut snaffle. I use this on my older horses as well and I use a chin strap. The chin strap stops the bit from sliding through your horse’s mouth. This can sometimes happen on a green horse.

When I am unbridling my horse I have them lower their head so that my horse can drop the snaffle bit out of their mouth without it banging on their teeth. If the bit bangs on my horse’s teeth at the same time as I am taking the headstall over my horse’s ears. My horse can become head shy.

In my courses and lessons, I encourage owners and riders to make their goal to develop a nice riding or saddle horse. Part of having that nice riding or saddle horse is having your horse to where they are good to halter, pick up their feet, saddle and bridle etc

Sign up to our newsletter