"Is Riding Bitless Safe?"

In this episode, we explore a big and sometimes hotly debated question in the horse world: Is riding bitless safe?

We look at what the research says, how bitless bridles actually work, and the factors that influence safety from training and communication to physical comfort and emotional wellbeing. We also unpack some of the common myths and assumptions (on both sides of the bit vs. bitless conversation).

This isn’t about declaring one method “right” or “wrong” it’s about understanding the horse’s experience, improving clarity in our cues, and making informed, welfare-focused choices that support the individual horse in front of us.

Whether you’re curious about trying bitless, already committed to it, or just want to hear a thoughtful discussion, this episode offers perspective, nuance, and plenty to think about.

Voice note your questions on WhatsApp to +353 85 143 8688 to have your questions answered on the Podcast.

Meet Your Hosts

Barbara Hardman (Bright Horse Equiation)
www.brighthorse.ie

📧barbara.j.hardman@brighthorse.ie ☎️+353 85 143 8688

 Jen Nash (The Equine Method)
www.theequinemethod.co.uk

📧 Info@TheEquineMethod.co.uk ☎️+44 7902920923

Transcript

0:00

So Jen, what are we talking about today? So today we are delving into the very hot topic of bit versus bitless. Silence. Silence. I know because it's um it it's it's funny because I find saying bitless or bitted versus bitless, vice versa, having that versus in there, I feel like is often reductive to the conversation. Absolutely. Because it sort of assumes that they're at loggerheads together and that, you know, you know, it's kind of a bit Harry Potter, like one can only live while the other survives. Like, you know, it's it feels like this Goliath battle where it doesn't have to be. And I think that's because the narrative often assumes that, like, you know, one is, you know, one's better than the other. Exactly, one's better than the other, and it hangs on the emotion that, like, well, if I use this, therefore I am a more compassioned or better person, and if I don't use it, then therefore I'm not. And that is again reductive to the conversation and doesn't actually get to the crux of what bit a g what using a bit does, what using bitless does, how they work, and when it's appropriate to use when which when is appropriate to use and when we want to use it, and what are and what they're actually trying to achieve. Yeah. So I think for for this, like it's a great conversation, and I really want to have it for this podcast. Um, I suppose, like, for for our narrative, I don't want to pit them against each other, we want to go at it from a scientific perspective. Absolutely, absolutely. So I think what's really interesting is for me, where does this mindset of, like you say, bit versus bitless come from? And we didn't actually so before every podcast, Barbara and I have a little brainstorm of what we want to cover and what we're gonna briefly talk about, and this has just popped into my head now, so Barbara's gonna get this thrown at her with no um no preparation. Um, but it's just suddenly occurred to me that this is actually a topic that is actually very cultural and historic. If you think about what cultures with horses going back hundreds of years uses bits and who didn't use bits, and even there's a society element, if we go back to I'm thinking, I don't my history is not very good, but I'm thinking knights of the Templar type of human history. I would imagine it was only the rich and the knights who could actually afford bridles with metal bits, and the poor people probably didn't have bits, and they just had rope head collars and things like that. That's a really interesting concept. I and as I say, like if anybody is uh history or history, oh please do message us because that would be so fascinating. And as you say, like, is there a class element, is there a societal element? Because we know when it comes to, and now you see you open to this kind of worms. This is why we we we structure it to save the listeners really from us going down a rabbit hole. Ingrid Wolfram wrote that fantastic article last year. And attack and equipment. It was about the attack and equipment and the top of bridles, absolutely, and it was this fabulous article that talked about this human societal idea, you know, like this this idea that like when you feel like you've made it somewhere to a certain level, you get to wear certain things, yeah, like the show jacket, yeah, like the fancy hat, like you get to wear that equipment that says, Hey, I've made it, you know. It's and it and I it's a fantastic article. I'll try and put it in the show notes and if I can find it again. It's really, really worth reading because although I've never ridden in a double bridle, except for weird makeshift ones that are bitless, that are absolute chaos. Um, you trying to cannibalize various bridles into double bridal, bitless bridal that I was messing around with. Um, and it's not something and I've never even worn a show jacket before. Uh my riding shorts are about as far. So, you know, it's not something that I have worn. However, I could totally empathize with that societal feeling because the first time I started I rode Blossom Bitless in a competition, I felt really proud of myself for that achievement. Yeah, it made me feel good because I had achieved a certain level and I felt like I'd made it to that level of training. So we all have that kind of idea of like, okay, well, if we're wearing or using this type of equipment, how does it make us feel as riders? Um, does it make us feel like we've achieved something? And it sort of signals to everyone else within our community, hey, we've made it. So I think that that's really interesting as well. Is there a certain amount of is there a history of if you were able to afford and use a metal bit, did that indicate a certain level? Yeah, or a certain area of class. Yeah, I think I think it does massively. I mean, last year uh Donald and I went to York and we went to the Viking Jorvik Museum, and this is just just remembering this now, and actually there were metal bits and spurs and stuff, and they made a point in the museum talking about that metal was obviously expensive, and the detailing was expensive. So if you could embroider your spurs, for example, with intricate details and carvings, you were of a higher status, and I do feel like that has still remained within humans. Obviously, we really don't change, home humans do not change. You think about all the brands of bits and tack and what kind of saddle are you riding in, and it's just like I mean, we're not affiliated to any brands, I'm gonna name some brands for the sake of this podcast. But if you say I ride in a Wintech saddle compared to I ride in an Amarigo saddle, there's already assumptions there, and there would also be the assumption if you were a happy hacker who did who rode three times a week through the woods and across fells and whatnot, and you were riding in an Amerigo or in a keep or Devaku saddle, people would be thinking, Why is your fat hairy cob got an Amerigo saddle on its back? Why haven't you just got a winted? Do you know we have these really strange and it's all it's all human concept, and it is there's oh there's a whole psychology behind that. So I think that paper would be really interesting, but I think we're gonna come back to human psychology in the whole bit versus bit list side of things. Um where I wanted to go over this first though, is you touched on it at the start, Barbara, is let's ditch the verses and let's do let's let's have a conversation that isn't being had, which is what's the similarities? Yeah, absolutely, because one of the things that I think we all sort of forget is that we're all technically using bitness every single time we take our horses from the stable to the field. Yeah, it's a head collar. Yeah, from a and and this is from a behavioral perspective, the the pressure that we're applying in order to, you know, from a from a learning and a behavioral perspective is the same as bitless. You apply pressure through negative reinforcement to the nose band, the horse slows its feet and stops, and you release the pressure, and that's reinforced by the release of the pressure, and that's how we control a horse with a head collar. Yeah, and we are all very happy to do that because it's normalized. Here's my head collar, I'm leading my horse, stop, go forward off that pressure, and and and we would all accept that quite happily. So that is basically the same mechanisms that are at play with some subtle nuances when it comes to billets, because obviously, when we're on the horse, we've changed the rules, we're no longer on the ground. So when we're on the ground, there's another thing that the horse is watching, and that's your feet, yeah, and what you're doing. So the horse is picking, they are masters of body language, so they're they're taking all that in. So there's other things that we need when we're in the saddle, um, seat, legs, hands. We all I think we're all hopefully all familiar with them. Um, but fundamentally it's stop, go left, right. Yeah, and everything else that we teach on top of that is a combination of those. Yeah, um, and with a bitless bridle, you're basically doing the same thing as you would with a head collar. You pull the reins, it applies pressure to the nose band, the horse slows down or stops, release the pressure, and that reinforces it. You know, and pull the rein to the right, they turn their head to the right, they step forward, move to the right, release the pressure, and and that's reinforced. And the same thing is happening with a head collar on that nose band. So it's something the horse already understands with a head collar, um, and with a bit, we're basically doing exactly the same. Yeah, absolutely. I would caveat that it's what the horse should understand, but we're not always very good at teaching that. Um, so Barbara made a point there that I talk about a lot of my clients, and I'm really hot on this with my clients, especially at the start, and it's a it's something that other techniques actually teach the opposite, and then people get issues and it causes a whole can of worms, and that is not to follow your feet. So it's very often you're gonna have a horse that actually doesn't understand go and stop and turn very well, even though you're pulling on the head collar, because what you're actually doing is you're moving your body and your feet first before you apply that pressure, and then you get on the horse's back and you struggle with brakes, you struggle with turning, you struggle with your go and your stop, but actually, because it hasn't been taught very well on the ground. And there are certain well-known techniques out there, which is when you stop your feet, they stop their feet. When you go, they go, and you want your horse to follow and mimic you, which can be nice and can be helpful, but when we start wanting to teach ridden commands from the ground into the saddle, it can be a bit pop problematic. Because we effectively have changed the rules, yeah. You know, we we've changed the rules for for the horse, um, and we want to only change one thing at one time, and we we don't want to confuse them by saying, Okay, here are the humans on the ground, follow my feet, stop and move, follow my feet, and then the minute you're in the saddle, you've now disappeared. Um so what does the horse have to fall back on? And then we want to make things the the whole point of behavior and learning and equitation and equitation science and trying to train our horses is to make things the least confusing for our horses possible because that reduces stress, it facilitates learning and it keeps us safer. So we want to achieve all of those. Absolutely. So by ensuring that the horses responding to the negative reinforcement or the aids from the bridle or from the head collar, regardless of what we're doing, then we are more likely to set ourselves up for success. So here's a question, Jen, since you've led nicely into this. Um, can you step me through or talk to me about how you would a completely naive horse right from the get-go, how would your preference be to train them so that they understood all of those concepts? As in pressure and release on the head. Yeah. Um, okay, so there's many roads to Rome, so it depends whether if I'm working with a horse and client and owners who are happy and pro to use targets and these sorts of things, we could use target training. But I'm gonna go down the maybe the more accessible route, follows maybe more traditional lines, and just keep things a little bit more simple. So, all I would want to do is I usually start with a step back first, and I'll take super light pressure, so light pressure that I'm basically holding the rope with my thumb and my first finger. Take that rope, I always aim for the middle of the peck muscles because it's a really nice directional place that we can aim for, and just hold that pressure really, really gently. And I would challenge anyone listening to this podcast to do this. Only enough pressure that you're using just your thumb and your first two fingers towards the pecks really lightly and see what your horse does. Does your horse automatically step back, drop their head, step back? In which case, as soon as they make that backwards motion, and with a baby horse, naive horse, if that was just a rock back, I would let go of the pressure there. So pressure release. You can then strengthen this with a food reward or scratches as your positive reinforcement. What I would say a lot of people will find is that the horse does nothing, or they push against it, or they'll try to headbutt you, or they'll turn their head left and right, or they'll step forwards, and it's a really big indication that actually that learning of what does pressure mean, yep, it is not there. So if we just link this back over to bridles, the same thing can happen. So, what what's the pressure? What's a bit to a horse? Well, it's okay, we've got a metal or okay, fair enough, it's not always metal, there's a lot of different materials out there. So we have an object that's in the horse's mouth, lying over the tongue and lying over the bars of the mouth. We have the same pressures, it's just in a different part of the body, so the reins pull back to stop or slow, so that's backwards pressure. We have turn left, pressure to the left, pressure to the right, and okay, your goal would be from your your legs or your voice. But essentially, for the horse, whether it's a head collar, a bitless bridle, or a bridle, it's still all negative reinforcement. No, that's great, Jen. Thank you so much. Like, and and that's it. And what I I would add to that is like um if you've ever seen me and Jen on our social medias or videos working, you'll see it. Like we go, we and like I've seen you do it, and we've worked together, and I know I do the same. So quiet, like statuesque. Like at you as the as the rider and the trainer um on the ground, don't move. Like you are you are you are one with not moving, um, like absolutely no movement from you. You are just holding that pressure um and just waiting. Your feet don't move, don't move nice and calm. And the reason we say that as well is because you don't want to inadvertently give a cue to the horse based on your on your on your body. Um and uh Jodie Hearthstone says this beautifully in one of her presentations to the ISIS conference, which is one of my favourite things that she says. And uh, and and she does it in a kind of a facetious way, but she's just like, you know, what happens when you're trying to sell a horse and you go, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No, they'll step backwards. All you gotta do is look slightly to the left, lift your right elbow, step back a little bit, drop the right hip. You need to stand in this little sort of I'm a little teapot stance, and then they'll step backwards. And that's kind of and and I know she's being facetious, but they do pick up on those cues incredibly. And they are so clever at doing it, which is why when we see certain people with horses who've been together for a very long time, they almost seem to be able to read each other's minds. They have this lovely, you know, people can say it's a bond or it's a harmony, but it's because that the horse is incredible at picking up those cues and picking up the what you're doing with your body. Yeah, they have learned it so quickly, and we can use that to our advantage, but we need to first be aware that that's what we're doing. So we start from baseline where we as the human are, you know, as they we are zen, we are one, we do not move, only the cue that we are giving them. Yeah, and as Jen alluded to there, if you want to use it with positive reinforcement, as I say, like that's absolutely fine. You can cue it with a step back, you can use targets as well to ask the horse to step backwards and and layer in the aid for for stepping back with the lead rope so that you can connect those two together and you can connect to the positive reinforcement. But I would argue that I think for every single horse it is really, really important for them, however you want to train, to understand negative reinforcement. Absolutely, because a a time will come whether a groom, a handler, a yard manager, a veterinurse, a vet, there will be someone else that handles your horse. Yes. And if they don't understand the basic forms of negative reinforcement through step forward, step back, through a head collar or a bridle or whatever happens to be, then this could actually create more confusion for your horse and more stress, particularly if they're already in a stressful situation like um a veterin consultation, yeah, and you know, they need to go into horse vitals. So I I just think that's really important. That's my own personal opinion. No, I think that's I mean, that's touching on a topic. Well, we talk about you know setting up horses for success, and we talked about that in another episode, but it is very true for just all aspects of horses that I do have clients that are aiming for pure positive reinforcement only with their horses, and I have huge admiration for it, and it's a very nice way of being. But the way that our society with horses is set up, and I actually I actually don't think that negative reinforcement is unnatural for horses. I think pressure and release happens within the world, it happens in the environment. We can go into it in way more depth. We're not going to because it's not the point of this episode, but I could say it is a safety thing, you know, pressure and release, understanding it's a safety thing, it's a welfare thing, and also means if a horse understands negative reinforcement and genuinely understands pressure and release, we can be a lot softer, yeah, and their welfare improves. And there's a great paper out there, I forget the name, um, I've referenced it on my socials about how horses with behavioural issues tend to go through more homes than horses who don't have behavioural issues, and very often those behavioural issues can come from just confusions in training, and the horse is very confused and unhappy about life. But hopefully, with that big there's a couple of big tangents there, we've kind of concluded that bits and No, but just to just before I say like I just I think what you've touched on there it is important for the whole versus thing because it it's the same point, right? You know, we kind of we sort of separate it into two different lanes, right? And it goes to the crux of you know, you kind of have like negative reinforcement versus positive reinforcement, shoes versus barefoot, bitless versus bitted. It's that logger heads again, you know, between the two. Um, and we're here not to try and say not to to continue the verses, but to kind of bring a little bit of sort of nuance to the conversation, um, and I'd say hopefully to kind of give you the information to make the decisions that best suit you and your horse. Yeah. Do you know what I think would make a big change in people's perceptions is if there were more allowances in the competitive sphere. Because obviously a lot of bitless bridles are excluded. Yeah. Um, so you can be barefoot in every- I think you can there's no rules about being barefoot, but there are rules about rules about boots, though. Yeah, there's rules about boots, so that creates some exclusion. There's rules about obviously bitless in certain disciplines, so that's an exclusion as well. I think if we can get to a point in the sport where there's less exclusions, then we'll see a shift in like general horse ownership and society and that and that kind of perception. But for as long as some things are as deemed as this is illegal, it's the illegal we're gonna we're gonna have issues. Yeah. So the so I so I I have two I have two bridles that I like to use, um, depending on what I'm doing. I have you know uh a sort of a hackamore, so it's got a you know, a shank, there's two different levels. I have kind of a seahorse one and I think it's called a heart. I love that they're called heart seahorses inside. You've got to love marketing, heaven. Yeah, and again, it's good marketing, you know, it's very good marketing. What are you using? I'm using the heart bridle. I'm losing my my love heart. I'm using my seahorse. My love hearts, exactly. You know, it's very it's very cute, but they're both shanks and they they operate on you know just the physics of of pressure and that law of the lever, which is how they're working. And then the bit that I use is technically FEI illegal, it's an it's in a quote quote unquote illegal bit. Um so technically like what are you using, Barbara? I know amatei terrible. I'm using it, I must be using a really terrible bit if it's illegal. Well, now I want to know. I genuinely don't know what you use. What is it? Do you know? It is a and I don't want to put the brand in here because obviously, like you know, we have no favourites here. But yeah, uh as I say, it's it's it's it's a winnings. I can put the brand in here. I mean, it's up to you, I don't mind. It's it's called winnings. Now your man is he's the tiger king of bits, is the best way I would put it. Like, you know, uh if you watch his video, he's Australian, he is. I kind of half love it. Like, you know, it in his mind, this bit fixes everything, right? And like, okay, cool. But the actual mechanic. Mechanics of the bit I really really like from a behavioural perspective. So the middle part that's on the tongue is very flat, it's a very flat lozenge, and it works like a hinge where the left and the right move independently. Yeah, okay. Now you can understand why that's great from a behavioral perspective, right? So it's very clear. So if you had, say, like a mullen bit, which is just a straight line, and you were to pull uh left or right, then the whole piece is going to move inside the horse's mouth. Yeah. You know, if you have a three-ring, like not three rings, uh like a French link, and you pull to the left, again, the whole thing is going to move inside the horse's mouth. Again, we're talking about communication. We want clear communication to the horse. The bit that I have has a sort of a fixed hinge in the middle. So if you pull to the right, only the right side of the bit moves and it will not nook cracker. It cannot close completely. It fixes and it will not move any further. So it cannot close on the horse's mouth. It it stays exactly like where it is, it'll only move a certain angle and then it'll stop. So if you pull the reins to stop the horse, it will not close on the horse's mouth. It fixes. Does that make sense? Yeah. So, but it's an illegal bit, which I find fascinating because, from a behavioural perspective, I actually think it's a very good bit. Yeah. Because it really clearly highlights. Hold on. For the purpose of the podcast, Barbara has now just left, and of course she keeps all her tack and her equipment and her bridal because we're on webcams, we can see each other. She's got all of her tack and equipment on the banister in her house. And I've just seen all of that. Yeah, I've just explained to them what just happened there. And of course, you have your bit and your biddle right there. Okay, so it's not ported. Okay, so I I envisaged something that was ported, but actually, that central lozenge that is quite big. It's very flat. It's very flat, but it's very big because it's got the hinge. And and yeah, and because of that hinge, I can I see what you mean. So Barbara's pulling the two, so it's a D ring, she's pulling the root two rings together, and it really cannot collapse. It'll only go so far. So, really, I suppose the the the the point I was making with that kind of description is that the fact that I arrived in a bit that is deemed illegal, it can kind of give me it it can kind of make people think, oh, Barbara must be doing something wrong in using that bit. Yeah. But there are certain bits that are legal that from a behavioural perspective and a welfare perspective, I personally wouldn't agree with because I don't think they are clear communication to the horse, which is what we want to do to help facilitate learning. And I personally think that they're very rigid bits and that they can cause discomfort and pain. Yeah, yeah. And it's a it's a shame because these kind of these uh can't think of the word, segregations, allocations, these itemizations of bits, whatever word you want to use, um, it can put people off buying them. And like you say, it could be the perfect bit for that horse, but because it's deemed as illegal, they go, Oh, well, I might, I might want to do a competition one day, so I probably shouldn't get that, but it could be the best for the horse. And I also, and if there's any bit companies listening to this, I would actually love you to reach out because I don't know the answer to this, but I would imagine there's I mean there's a lot of bit companies out there who are doing the research, who are putting the work in, but from my understanding, a lot of the development is being done on an anatomical level, and how the bit fits in the mouth and the shape of the tongue and the bars, and there's been great advancements, don't get me wrong, this isn't a dig. I would just love to know that how much input is being how how much input is there from people helping design bits from a behavioural and learning perspective, allowing for that clear communication. If that's happening, and like I say, there's a company listening to this, please let us know. We'd love to showcase that. But from what I've seen so far, what Barbara's just talked about, there you know, there's a lot of bits out there that might fit a horse's mouth when it's static quite nicely, but then as soon as we start moving the bit, there's a lot of cross communication, a lot of confusion there. Yeah, and and that's that's one of my one of my arguments is that when the bit is in the mouth, it's not a piece of just fancy jewellery that we wear, it is a tool that we're using to communicate with the horse, yeah. Which means that when it's in its static position, that's not a good representation of what the bit is actually doing. We need to see it in action and how that bit is being used. Yeah, it's like a saddle fitter. Yes, a good a good saddle fitter will always watch the saddle being ridden and moved in because a good farrier will watch your horse being moved to assess their movement pattern. They will not look at because because the the the hoof is designed to move, the back is designed to move, and horses they're horses are designed to move. Exactly. So stat looking at a bridle and a bit in a static form is not conducive to the horse's learning, welfare, and communication. We need to look at it as a whole, yeah, in order to understand how it's actually being used. Yeah, um and bitless bridles don't get off scot-free here either because bitless bridles can fit horrifically, and also there's a lot of bad bitless bridles out there. A lot. Oh, I have I I mean, I I I we we know this because like I have bought many, many over the years. I've cannibalised, I've created my own, I've cannibalised bridles, I've bought spare parts, I've made my own. Like me, you know, it's one of those things where I there is literally a certain design that I really like because it facilitates everything that I want in a in a bitless bridle, but there's many out there that do not. And this comes to, I suppose, part of this conversation that often gets overlooked, which is nose band pressure. Yeah, and this is really, really, really important for and I am a I this is my this is my soap box, so I do apologize. It's one thing for me that's really important for the welfare of the horse because horses are obligate nasal breathers, that means they have no choice but to breathe through their nose. Like, and we are asking them to be performance animals, so we need to make sure that we do not obstruct their airways. But they also have a really fine bony part of their nose where we put the nose band. So it is critical that that nose band is not put overly tight, you know, that we uh make sure that we give those two fingers, three fingers if you can, like loose is important for them to be able to breathe and perform correctly and to ensure great comfort and to make sure that we do not cause damage to their to their nasal features, yeah. Like it's really, really important. And for both the bitless and bitted, this is really really important because the design of a lot of the bitless bridals that are out there rely on overly tight nose bands, yeah. Yeah, but this is and they because they're like this needs to not move around on the face, so I can clearly create you know, left and right, so you need to tie this tight. And I I've seen this over and over and over again, and there's only a few designs that get this right where the nose band is fitted loose enough, but still creates clear communication. That's very hard to do. Yeah, very hard to do. Ultimately, your your your side pull type bitless bridle, which is very popular, it looks quite nice and it looks like it should be very kind, will slip and slide around the face. If you do a correct, you know, you could use the ISS taper gauge, for example, your two fingers. If you do that correctly, the bridle will slip around the face. And some horses might cope with that, some won't. Some will find that very irritating. The other thing you have to watch out for is that if a bitless bridle has a traditional throat lash, it's not there's a high risk that then the cheek piece is going to get far too close to the eye and rub into their eye as well. A good bitless bridle should actually have a much lower throat lash like a head collar, not a traditional one like a bridle. Um, and that actually helps stabilise the cheek pieces so that it doesn't fall into the horse's eye. So there's already two issues there. So, what people tend to go away from is they they see the bitless bridles that have the hackamore, the shank, and they think, oh well, hackamores are cruel, the shank, the leverage. It's actually that's potentially going to be a much kinder bridle, and it's what Barbara and I have both leaned towards. And just so people know, we both still ride in boots as well. We actually ride in both and we switch between them, and we'll talk about that later. But when it comes to bitless bridle, on personal experience, observations, and the research that we have to date, that's what I would lean towards because it does allow you to have that two fingers at a nose band and still allows for that clear communication. My issue with the cross or under bits, and this is generalization. Again, every horse is different, and you have to fit to the horse's confirmation, their own behavioural preferences and skin and stuff. But the issue with the cross under, it's a bit like control halters and dogs and and horses. Like once that tension is pulled, it won't, yeah, it won't release as quickly as you think it will. So then you have delayed negative reinforcement, which is actually incorrect negative reinforcement, and could actually be positive punishment. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. And this is and this is where we come down to that clear communication. So, yeah, absolutely. Like, um, I completely agree with you with that with the hackamore. Um, and that would be my preference too, is having that shank, you know, because people go, Oh, that's a lot of pressure because the law of the lever correct. You can you can obviously, when you have a shank, you're going to be able to apply more pressure, right? That is that's why we have three ring bits, that's how you can put it on the last ring. That creates more leverage, so therefore it creates more pressure. However, you know, that is where you need to understand that. And if you understand that and you're applying that to your riding, then you're going to use hopefully less pressure, you're going to need less. But it does do one thing, it stops that nose band from moving around on the nose, again, creating confusion and stress for the horse because they don't understand what you want because the bridle is moving quite a lot. And it stops you from having to then overly tighten the nose band in order to create clear communication. So that's why I would prefer it, and I lean closer towards it as well, because I find that the horses are happier in it because they go, I understand what you want from me human. That is really clear and it is comfortable. Yeah. And they're what we really want to kind of yeah, that that's ultimately our goal, right? Is clear, comfortable communication with the horses. Yeah, absolutely. And it is funny, and again, this has just popped into my head now, is we're talking about a shank, which having been clearer communication for the horse, which actually kind of mimics what we see in dressage with the double bridle. Now, and I'm talking about correct use, the classical correct use of the double bridle, whereby you effectively ride off the snaffle and you only pick up the waymouth, and that waymouth range should be pretty damn loose. And if you watch the better riders, it is especially when they're training, it is loose and it's only picked up. It's nearly dropped, it's like it's nearly like a big loop. Yeah, it it's it's only there for that, yeah. Yeah, it's for that communication, and then it's dropped. My feeling, I mean my feelings in double bridles. I just don't know that we need them. Just I don't I really don't know. I really don't know if we really need them. There comes there's a historical background, there's a military background, you know, all I think that's yeah, where a lot of it comes from. Oh, all the schools start. Yeah, Vienna, the Spanish school, they they were they were all created from a need for war horses. Yeah, not not and then it you know war became sport, sport becomes what we have now. So, you know, do we need them? That's another topic. There's those are big debates, and they are big debates. They're a big push for having snaffles now. And I and I think for the purposes of like this podcast as well, it's like it's really trying to understand what bitless and and bits give us and what the horse understands, yeah, focusing on that that learning theory um and that behaviour and that communication for our riding. And I think for most people listening to this podcast, like like we started with start being like you know, how does our horse understand the pressure that's being applied? Yeah, when we're getting into uses of double bridles, you know, people are talking about kind of fine-tuning those aids to ask for different movements. However, I've seen some incredible people who've been able to do all of that from the ground with a stick and a carrot. So that's why I'm kind of going, do we need it? We're not in war, we're not at war anymore. Um, but I think that leads us down quite a rabbit hole if we start if we start that now. Um and today's today today's topic is not discussing the politics of sport. Like you say, we want to talk about what does the horse understand between bit uh bitless and bitted. So hopefully we can see there that essentially it doesn't really matter what we're using for the horse, the horse's understanding. It's just negative reinforcement, it's pressure and release, it's directional pressure, but on just different parts of their body. And it doesn't matter if it's a bitless bridle, it doesn't matter if you're bitted, the rules still apply. It has to be fitted correctly, you have to be able to allow them to breathe. You know, I guess it's horrible we have to say that we do. You have to allow the horse to breathe and move its jaw. But I don't think people understand that horses physically cannot breathe from their mouth. Yeah. I I just yeah, I don't think people kind of understand that that's really important. Yeah. Um and even more so as we're coming into spring and summer, um, talking from my own experience, um, horses with asthma or com or have pollen sensitivities, if you're going to be out there riding as these spores are in the air, or even in the winter, C O P D and ROR, I can't remember what terms we're using now, always seems to change for the same medical condition, it's even harder for them to breathe. You know, so if you're restricting that at all and your horse has a compromised respiratory system, that's a welfare issue in itself. So, bitted, bitless, it really doesn't matter, the rules still apply, it's still negative reinforcement, it still has to be fitted correctly, and both have flaws. So, where we want to go with this next is actually look at the research that we do have. We're not gonna go into this too much because what we want to highlight is the fact that basically we still don't know enough. And the research that we have access to is some of it's very compelling, and we're gonna look at some that have got a lot of social media attention, and there were some that were quite pro-bit or anti-bitless, and vice versa. But if we actually look at the the actual methods and materials of the studies, we we basically need to summarize like that's a good start, but we we don't have enough evidence on a big scale to make conclusive statements. And I think it's really important, like we we talked about at the start with our sort of cultural, you know, how we feel culturally about things and the social side of things. Like scientists aren't infallible, but we all have our own biases, which is why we use statistics in order to try and remove those biases, um, in order to present good data. So there are a couple of things that we can say that are immutable facts about it, you know, any kind of unrelenting pressure on the horse's mouth and it's unrelenting is going to cause pain. I think we just have to say that. If you are pulling on the reins and you do not let go and the horse per performs Monty Monty. Oh, I do love it when Monty joins the podcast. I I don't because I have to edit this. Um any kind of what's up with you? Okay. He just wants to join in. I'm unrelenting pressure. He is. Um Are you in pain, Barbara? So if we if we hold on to the reins, regardless if this is bitless or bitted, and we hold them too tightly, and the horse performs the correct behavior and we do not release the pressure, then that is not only going to confuse and stress the horse, but it will also cause pain. And I think we really do have to say that what's very important, and then as Jen said before, it tips into a positive punishment, and that's why we have to be really clear about what we're actually doing and understand the learning mechanisms. Because if we understand the learning mechanisms and what we're actually doing with our horses, then we are more likely to correctly train them and decrease the risk of that happening. So I think we do, you know, that's that's a immutable fact that has been discussed in the literature, and I think there's very much an agreement across the board when it comes to that, when it comes to unround two pressures. So I think that's worth worth saying. Yeah. Um a nice, a nice, I was gonna say it's just a nice quote um from McLean and McCreevy. It comes from 2005, but it's just a nice sentence that kind of summarises that bits are a potential source of enormous discomfort to the horse as the mouth is a highly sensitive sight. I don't think anyone can argue with that. It's their mouth, and also horses didn't evolve to have bits in their mouths. We just took advantage of the fact that they have this gap in their mouth, and we talked about this in our Christmas special that you know, Santa's reindeer are all bitless because they don't they can't physically fit a bit in their mouth, you know. So it's just it's just it's it's just fate that happened that the horse has this gap that we can use. Absolutely, and we've just kind of taken advantage of that. Um, and then as I say, on on the on the other side of that, I say what we can see from the the studies as well, from the bitless side of things, they're obviously often, and we said that at the top, they're often cited as a kind of a kinder approach to controlling the horse. You know, however, the studies give mixed results in in that regard. Um and some of them say, like, yes, we can have a reduced conflict behaviour, and that's when we talked about confusion. So, you know, is it is it holding that pressure? Is it releasing the pressure? Is that part of why we're seeing less confusion? Um, because the horse is able to escape some of that pressure a little bit. What is it happening? So we don't know what that's you know, we don't know why. Um, or is it because there's an absence of the bit, which means the rain tension is on some other structure. So that there's loads of little nuances that we don't understand why that mechanism is happening. So that's really important to understand. What's also important to understand as well is a lot of the studies that were done are going to be done with riders who we can't blind the study. A good research study will have blinded and just participants. Because not everyone, not everyone's going to know what that means. So a blinded study means that the participant doesn't know the conditions that they're going through. So we can't blind the riders. And what that means is that you've got to imagine the only way you could do it in a perfect world, if it was a blind study, it would mean that the riders riding a horse didn't know what the horse was wearing. Yeah, which would be very difficult to do. Yeah, it's impossible because you'd have to actually potentially put a blindfold on the riders now. I think the riders would ride a bit different if they were blindfolded. I'm not sure we'd get that through ethics. Um they have they have made attempts of this on um because a friend of ours does research on racehorses and she's done some studies on barefoot and different types of shoes and metals and things, and they've tried they tried to blind those studies. But as soon as the riders went over a different terrain, so say they had they could hear it. So as they got to the gallops and they rode across the road, the riders knew whether they were riding a barefooted horse or a shod horse because they could hear it. So in the world of research and doing these studies, uh yeah, I just I honestly don't know how they could possibly make these studies blind, but then it also does make the results slightly less reliable because people will ride differently. They will ride differently, like and this is it. So, you know, again, just to I say an example of like a good blinded study is if we wanted to measure the effects of caffeine on your metabolism. What you could do is take two groups of people and give them a cup that just says A or B written on it, and one of them is decaffe and one of them is caffeinated, and you drink that and you don't know the difference, so you don't know which one you've had, and then they can do a metabolism test. So that's how you could. Blind it so it's going, you know, you don't know what you're doing going into it. But again, it's very hard to do that in this situation. So when you take riders who traditionally, because traditionally the majority of riders will have started and ridden their horses bitted, because there's this social idea of bitted versus bitless, there's various things when it comes to safety and control, and everybody thinks, Oh god, you know, would you have enough control over this, that, and the other, or is it more dangerous? As soon as you are going to sit on a horse that you are in a research environment where you know the horse is bitless, you are going to ride probably more defensively. If it's not where you're used to. Yeah. It's not where you're used to. That is going to change how that it's very much going to change how we how we interpret the data. Um, and also as well, and and I think Paul McGreavy as well have studied this as well, there's very little understanding within the community of negative and positive reinforcement in the quadrants of learning. So, again, we talk about the release of pressure and how important that is. How much of an influence is that going to have on the research that's there? You know, are they correctly using negative reinforcement to train the behavior? Yeah. So that's why there is a study that I really, really like that talks about uh, you know, it's a small study, but the methods are fantastic. Um, and it's a preliminary study, and it talks about bitless and and bitted in foundation training. So what's great about this is it's naive horses, so the horses haven't been touched, they've only been handled with a head collar. So they're able to, you know, like take horses with no kind of prior learning, and they do actually apply the negative reinforcement really, really well. And they do it bitted with bitless, and they do long reining and they do groundwork and then they do ridden. And throughout the the paper, throughout the the the paper, they found you know, horses responded and learned faster, you know, bitless, and these were naive horses, and they did actually apply the training, but it's a very small study, but the training's very good in it, and they did find that things like you know, it as they say, like they they stopped, there was no significant difference in how fast they stopped. Um, there was a lower heart rate with the bitless, um, potentially they were less stressed. So it is a really, really nice paper because it takes, as I say, naive horses, it takes horses that you know haven't experienced these before and trains them right from the from the get-go. And I suppose what we could take away from this study is that maybe when we are starting horses out and we're long reining them, or we are trying to get them accustomed to a rider or training them for the first time to lead and you know, as Jen explained at the start, take a step forward, take a step back, that potentially a head collar or bitless may be the best way for them to learn. And I really like this approach, particularly for like a naive horse, because from a again, from a behavioural perspective, I think this makes a lot of sense because we only change one thing at a time and we do it slowly. So if we've already halter trained a horse that you know, as a is just coming through their foundation training, they know how to wear hair colour, they know how to wear a halter, then asking them to long rein off that or start to transition into the saddle means we're not changing too much too quickly, and it means that we can just build that training slowly. So I quite like that approach, and I do really like this study. Yeah, the one thing that I mean, all the all the results in this study are quite fascinating, but it's the mouth opening that is the most striking to me, and all the conditions are either bitted or bitless. So, in the actual bridling, so getting the horses used to having the bridle on, so the actual bridling, we've got over 20 for the bitted bridling, and bitless statistically none. It's nothing, and then again for long reading, the bitted, we've got about a frequency of eight, and the bitless one. One, and then mouth opening, bitted riding, okay, it's only about maybe one or two, and the bitless again showing statistically none. So that's not a statistical difference between those two. The most prominent is the bridling and the long reading. But what's important in that study to think is what they did was the the riding was number three. So the horses went through everything. So by the time you got to the riding, how much do they habituate to it? So potentially are we habituating or is it learned helplessness? Yeah. Now we can't say to that, but the last thing we want is learned helplessness because if they then we we don't have a horse who's you know, who has the same ability to be able to learn new things and they're a bit more shut down. So that's a lot that's we we absolutely want to avoid that from a learning and from a welfare perspective. So we we can't speak to whether which is that which is the case here. Um but again, from uh I say I I I'm not a physio, um, but from what we know, like you know, lowering the head and you know, elongating the back and stepping forward again for bitless when it comes to the long reining, you know, we did see a much lower head carriage, um, which again could I say definitely indicates less stress um and potentially better for the horse in foundation training from a physiological perspective. So yeah, it's it's a paper that I really like. I think it's quite a nice robust one, um, and I think actually gives us a more informed, gives us more information for particularly as they start in horses. So, in comparison, we had a study come out in 2021 called Nose Bad and Pole Pressures Underneath Bitted and Bitless Bridles and the Effects of Equine Locomotion, and this one received quite a lot of attention on social media. It did, and you know, there it was there was lots of interesting insights and it really captivated a lot of people because you know it really was highlighting in this study pressure and that it wasn't very favourable of the bitless bridal because of potentially high levels of pressure. The the study that you know we're gonna talk about next says there's no significant difference in the pull pressure between different bridal types, and you know, although they said there's no significant difference, they've not actually explained why that would be relevant. And I and I'm going from a a behavior and a learning and a welfare perspective, why would it make why why would we want to know that? Yeah, no, if we if we take it from the angle of teaching horses and communicating with them, all I would be worried about is as long as the pole pressure isn't high enough to cause discomfort, and do we know what that number is? And do we know what that number is exactly? Because to loop back around to to noseband pressure, which is what this paper talks about, we do we do know we have figures for discomfort. So Orla Doherty has done extensive research in this area, um, and uh uh you know, researching noseband pressure in competition horses, she's also worked with cadavers of horses to actually measure the newtons that are applied um for when it's going to do actual physical damage, because you wouldn't do that on a live horse. So obviously it was done on it on a cadaver and applied that. So we have tangible measurable information on when too much pressure, and that's why we have our two-finger rule because we understand what is going to negatively affect the horse. Absolutely. So that's a beautiful point. I just want to bring this in. So I'm not going to go through the study all of it, I'm going to do it slightly backwards, so hopefully, it makes the most sense of why personally and other people might have a bit of a an issue with the findings. So the overall findings of this paper were that all bridal designs studied have the potential to reduce blood flow to the nasal tissue. However, the side pool and the crossover bitless bridles were the worse. So that's what it was basically saying. That in this study, the highest peak pressures were coming from the bitless bridles, the side pull and the cross under. Right. Now, if we skip back and we have a little look at the methods and materials, and we're going to look at the fittings. So the bridles, your your standard cavison nose band with the bitted bridles. So all the horses were used to wearing a snaffle bridle in a riding school environment. We'll talk about that in a minute and why that's an issue. The nose bands were fitted with, according to the FEI guidelines, of two fingers from the horse's face and the nose band using the standardised nose band taper gauge. Great, we know that's a welfare standard that we should all be aiming for. Here's where I have an issue. The cross under and the side pull bitless bridles were fitted according to the manufacturer's instructions. Yes. This is where we start to have an issue. So for the crossunder bridle, the instructions told them to fit with one finger. One finger's difference. Um guide. And again, they use the standardized taper gauge so that they could fit the tall horses. We have an issue here. That's not a welfare-fitting standard. So the manufacturers are telling people to fit this bridle two times. Differently differently. Yeah, exactly. And it gets worse. It gets worse, Barbara. Can I the side pool? The side pool, less than one finger space underneath the nose band. So before we go even further, is it any surprise that these bridles came out with higher peak pressures when they're being told by the manufacturers to fit them too tight? And I actually would argue that that's really bad scientific design. That it, you know, that it's it's and again, I I apologize. I know researchers work really hard with these, so I hate trying to come after I hate trying to criticize them, but scientists are used to criticism, so hopefully they will take it as constructive. But it should have been the same. If you are measuring and uh and reporting on nose band pressure, you should have done it the same from all the bitless bridles to the bitted bridles, if that's what you're going to measure, because that's a confounding factor, yeah, a massive confounding factor. And I have handled those bitless bridles, both the ones that are in those studies, and I would not use them because I do not like the design. And because I I've looked at it and gone like that that's not going to help my horse here, and it's not going to have clear communication. So, again, the other factor here, too, is not only were they, you know, as a not the same, so therefore not measurable, and do not meet the standards that we know we should meet for for noseband pressure, it also means that because the cross under doesn't release the pressure, the chances are as the horses were riding, as you were riding that that pressure's not being released because of the way the cross under works. So therefore, you end up having to apply more pressure to still be able to clearly communicate with the horse. Yeah. So you're going to get, and then as I say, you have the rider influence as well, because as we talked about, you can't blind the study and so on. But not only that, it's the I don't know how thick the taper gauge is, not the taper gauge, sorry, that's wrong. Taper gauge is the same thing that's standardized. Oh, the actual sensor. Well, the no, the actual sensor, how thick is the sensor? Because if you think about the side pole bridle, and I'm looking at the pictures in the study, if there's less than one finger space under that nose band, was that sensor ever picking up zero? What if there was was there actually enough space for the sensor? Because no, because it's a podcast, you guys can't see this, but obviously you can go and find the study if you want to, and there's really good pictures in the study of what they did, so it's a good visual study. The take these sensors right on the on the bony part of the nose. Was there enough space for that in the first place? That is a very, very good point, and I'm you know. So if you can imagine, right, you have your loose ring, snaffle, cabin, bridle. You have used the taper gauge, and you've used the understanding that this is the space that we need to give the two fingers, yeah. The two fingers, you they've used this taper gauge, which is great because that means everything's measurable and consistent and the same, because everyone's fingers are different. So they use the taper gauge, great, yeah. That's good, and then they then they apply the sensor, which is going to obviously take up a little bit of that space. So you've already kind of reduced that a little bit, okay, by putting the the sensor on. Then you get your cross under, you get your bitless bridle, which they have done by the manufacturer's guidelines, which is not using the taper gauge, which is or they've used the taper gauge to make it even smaller, so it's one finger, and then you put the sensor on, so part of that distance is going to disappear again. Yeah, so very good point. So it gets even less for the side pull because it's less than one finger. So that is going to, and the thing is, the reason we we've said this earlier in me and Jen's preferences for for bitness bridles, the reason the side pull and the cross under say to put the nose band that tightly is because if you don't, then the nose band moves around quite a lot on the face and you don't get that clear communication with the horse, but you do it by compromising how much you you compromise their the the nasal you compromise you're compromising them by uh adding that extra pressure there. Yeah. So the solution the the answer again, we go back to this bitted versus bitless, which is what this paper's trying to discuss, but it's not comparing it, it's not comparing it correctly because ultimately it's not a case of the versus, it's I don't believe that a lot of these designs of the bridles are designed with the horses' interest. Now we've gotten better at it because we have anatomical headpieces now, right? Like we usedn to have them, like we have some really nice anatomical designed headpieces for horses, which is great because that's another step in the right direction. But some of the designs for the bitless bridle just do not work for what we want. So I get what they're saying in you know, we like to think of them as kind of a kinder option, but it comes down to bridal fit, doesn't it? Yeah, if we're not fitting it correctly, then we still risk the same issues, yeah. And that's it, and that's what the if the fit isn't correct, the results aren't going to be reliable in in, like I say, the pressures there. The other thing, and this this happens in other studies as well. Um, we're not mean I don't want to completely like slate one paper, it's just a good it's a good example of the issues that we see on the grand scheme of comparing bitless and bitted bridles, is that these were horses that were older over the age of 10 in a riding school environment that have been used to all their lives ridden and trained in one way, which is traditionally with a bit in their mouth. These horses were only allowed two 30-minute acclimatisations periods. That was one for each bit. So for a horse, give or take, you know, 14 the horse, they were 14 give or take, two and a half years old. For most of those horses, if not all of them, that was their first ever experience of having a bitless bridle, and they were only given half an hour acclimatization before the actual research and study started. There's not much mention on the experience of the riders if they were used to riding bitless and bitted. And yes, okay, so they had a standardization that they could they could safely respond to rain aids for all three paces, walk, trot, and cantered, as assessed by a BHS stage three coach in complete horsemanship. That's also quite subjective. Was it they were able to stop? Was it they they were able to stop within 10 seconds or two seconds of the aid? Yeah, you know, did it take them two laps to stop cantering? It's too wide, it's too big. Well, this is the first paper we talked about actually measures how many steps it takes. Yeah, and that and this this is why we like to the first paper was the preliminary effect, that's the younger horses, and as Barbara's saying, they did define these things. Yeah, and that's really important because, and the reason, like you know, they did stop, you know, as Jen says, it's like, well, they'll stop eventually, like, and that usually happens when we get the speed on, and I'm like, they'll stop eventually be fine. Um, you know, that's that's not measurable, and it doesn't give us an indication of how well they're responding. We need to know, are they you know, and it gives us an understanding as well of how fast the horse is learning, you know, one or two steps, three steps, five steps. Is it immediate? How responsive are they to those aids? And then that gives us an understanding of how well they're learning. Um, and yeah, the acclimatization period is very poor. Um, and it and it is from a from an animal behaviour and learning perspective, we would want a much higher acclimatization period. Um, and we'd also want, I don't know if they have a washout either. Like there's little things like that that just makes it really, really important. For the benefit of the listeners, what's a washout period? A wash out. So, for example, um, you know, if I wanted to use the same horse to study, if I want to do a crossover design, I'd want a washout period between. Um, so when I did my own research, I had I had five days where I just ignored that data. Yeah. And that was five days to acclimatize and to wash out. Now that was particularly that was five days for that particular study. Um and that was what was needed there based on the literature. Five days was was what was needed, but it means that we don't, you know, we might be recording that data, but we're not using it in their statistical analysis. Yeah. Like we do not use it because we allow kind of a baseline to reset. Um if we were doing like a nutritional study, it might be two weeks or three weeks of like washing it out, just going like, oh, and and like the heads being what it just like clean slate, um, you know, uh was it uh was it um a semelier, you know, like kind of cleansing your palate for for wine tasting? You know, think of it like think of think of it like that, you know, you want to sort of cleanse your palate before you take the next bit of uh bit of research so that the you know the effect of the first part of your research doesn't affect the second part of your research. So it's that kind of cleaning the slate, cleansing your palate before you before you do that again. So that's really really important. Um so hopefully it's also I was gonna say it's also really hard when it comes to learning because you can't unbake that cake. We've talked about that before, um, which makes behaviour difficult. Yeah. So hopefully we've just just between those two studies been able to identify why why this is such a hot topic on social media and in the industry, and why it's a topic that's probably going to be discussed and disputed for many years to come because we just don't have the research, and the even the research that's out there, it's not always the best, it is fallible, it does have issues, it's not been repeated yet, we don't have the big enough studies, and we don't have the comparisons. There's some good ones in there, like we had the preliminary one, and it was repeated. But arguably, you could talk about the fact, like, okay, that's two-year-olds. How does that then relate to older horses? And that's in very basic circumstances, and you know, I think people are hungry for the information of well, I want to go cross-country, I want to go hunting, I want to compete, or I want to know that I can go happy hacking and be safe, and we just don't have the solid foundation of scientific research there. All we can really go off of is almost anecdotal evidence at the minute. And and to and to be fair, like some of the the better research there is you know, um, is looking at social studies in regards to surveying people who already ride bitless. And I think and it and it's sad in many ways because I've seen this on social media that surveys get in a really hard time because they're like, oh, well, you're asking people's opinion, so therefore it's not really a study, and that's really unfair because some of the social study papers where they actually go and take survey data are some of the most robust statistics that you will find. Um, so there's there are ways of doing good survey data and good research around. That and we shouldn't dismiss it because it's not a lab control test. It can actually be really, really good in how you form your questions and how you ask and do your interviews can give you some really really robust data. But so there was one that was published last year on bit use and its relevance in rider safety and rider satisfaction and the welfare and equestrian sports, and that one's been doing the rounds a good bit as well. Um and they talked like I think it was 400. Yeah, about just under 400 people were surveyed, which again is a much is a really big nice population number. Um and if you have a a really good survey and a robust survey, then this can give us a really good indication of how you know riders are feeling. And ultimately, as well, I think it's great to go out and talk to people who are already riding bitless and bitted and talk to them directly because that's a wealth of knowledge, as Jen says, like it's anecdotal, but it's a wealth of knowledge that we need to tap into. Even in this podcast alone, me and Jen have talked about our preferences for different types of bitless bridles because we have experience with them and we're coming from a place of expertise in animal behaviour and learning, and why we like a certain certain way for the bridle to fit. So it's great to be able to talk to them and ultimately as well, like some of the findings when we come to safety is you know, the the findings are said that like bitless bridle that you know doesn't relate to reduced horse control and rider safety, and that's what they found in this survey and this research. And I think for both of us here, Jen, we we we can say that yeah, I probab I would find the same thing having ridden bitless. Yeah. Um absolutely, and this is this is where personal experience doesn't always match up with in that case it is matching up, but in others it's not matching up. So there was a study um in 2013, and one of their last sentences is riders, and this was a perception, which is how the riders felt. So, and these were riders who were not familiar with riding bitless, and one of the last sentences is the riders perceive that more tension is needed to achieve walk-to-halt transitions, and that's more pressure than a snaffle bit. In our own personal experiences, when horses are actually taught how to understand negative reinforcement, yeah, and it's the exact same as teaching a horse to respond appropriately to a head collar, you can use far less pressure, and this is my issues with a lot of the research is these horses haven't been given a chance, it hasn't been taught. So, how can you and it's the good it's the old adage, isn't it? Like, um, if you were to test a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it would fail. Yeah, yeah. These horses haven't been taught, so obviously it's going to take a lot because they don't understand what's been asked of them. And I can guarantee you, when I look at these studies, I bet you these horses weren't the easiest to handle in a head collar. I bet you they pulled to the grass, I bet you they ran off, I bet you that they weren't always that light on the head collar. And it's like, well, that's where we need to start from. If you want if you want bits to be more welfare friendly, if you want bitless bridles to be more welfare friendly, we have to actually teach the horses what we are expecting of them, and we have to teach people on how to achieve that. Yeah, because it's a it's a little bit of a blind feeding the blind, and this is why we're getting results and data that is very confusing, and I feel like it's adding to the whole bit versus bitted issue that we have because people then they get this information and they go, Well, this study show the bitless bridles are terrible, look at all this pressure, and you're like, Okay, let's look at into a little bit more detail. The horses didn't have a chance in hell to understand what was being asked of them. I actually love you segued into it, and you just made my brain think, and I'm like, Yes, it it's so fucking true. Like, it's it's it's the the bit versus bitless is just asking the wrong question. Yeah, you know, it should be like you know, do they understand? Do they not understand? That's that's what it actually is, that's what it comes down to. And we see it a lot as well, like when we're go, you know, I say when we're going through behavioral modification, like and we're looking at different horses and stuff. And I know you talked about it earlier about horses with behavioral problems tend to like be the ones that kind of bounce from from from owner to owner. And a lot of the time it's because they don't really understand what's happening in their life, you know, and when horses understand, and this goes for all animals, including ourselves, when we understand what the ask is and what's happening, then it reduces stress, it reduces confusion. And when we go to rider safety, stress and confusion and fear is more likely to cause injury and accidents and pain as well. Like, you know, those things are more likely to cause accidents rather than the tack. So we need to get away from this idea of the attack is the solution and focus more on the behavior and learning is the solution. Yeah. And I suppose, just to really caveat that, you're talking to two behaviourists who are going to be heavily biased, that behaviour is important. Yeah. But so that that's going to be our bias, absolutely. But I do think, like, regardless of what equipment you use, does the horse understand is the number one question? I mean, if we just just very quickly delve into the safety element from an anecdotal personal experience of what we've seen when I'm working with my own horses and clients' horses, it really doesn't matter if I'm working bitless or bitted, I will always go out with positive reinforcement and really harness that whoa, you know, halt. Can I go off? Does the horse understand even me just lifting the reins up slightly means slow down or prepare to stop? And this can work so beautifully. I've got clients who are traditional riders, we're bridal in a bit, and we've we've incorporated positive reinforcement to harness so the horse now understands and listen to the seat aid, very light rain aid, to the point where I've nearly had riders fall off because the horse's halt has become so good, and we've done trot halt transitions, and that horse has just gone voom, halt, and we get more square halts, and we get more correct halts, and we get halts where the horse's neck frame is longer and softer, and their the their glutes and their their hind end engages more because the horse is really understanding what is wanted from them. Positive reinforcement and off we go. And in an oh shit situation, I want to know I can stop. Oh, brakes are the most important thing in the world, yeah. Yeah, absolutely, and it doesn't matter if it's a bit or bitted. You have to teach the brain, teach the animal, not the equipment. I I honestly it is the one thing I say, like every horse I've had, and I say any horse I've trained is it the one thing I want heavily reinforced, the one thing I want the go-to to be in the event of anything, any question is stop. Stop is the most important thing to teach any flight animal, I would I would argue. Um, and as I say, like for me, I'm always grateful that I have it so highly installed. I say installed, but you know, reinforced with with my horse. Like, I was out hand walking her the other day, and there was a load of foals in the field. We were on one of the the back roads, load of foals in the field, running up and down, getting very excited that there was another horse there. And she was giving me all the tritchy-trots and the head shake and all the rest of it, and she started plowing on ahead of me. Big long lead rope. She was like a horse in front of me, and I was like, Okay, I really need this to stop, you know. And I was just like, Whoa, and and she just stopped it and went, Where's my treat? I had that really well installed, even though we have a very exciting, highly arousing situation where there's lots of foals and everything's running around and it's all very exciting. And oh my god, we're gonna go trit trot and head shake and all the rest of it. But stop is so important, and having that stop installed means that I have more control, so it does not matter, and this is my go, it does not matter what equipment I was using in that situation. If the behavior of stop is not there, then it does not matter what I have. No, because and again, I would argue that if you had um, you know, because people kind of go, Oh, okay, well, you know, there's there's lots of things that we can add for extra control that create more pressure, right? So we could have like um, I think there's like the halty head collar, which tightens again, that sort of tightens the nose band, yeah. So there's all sorts of things, chains over the nose bands, bits, everything. You could you can increase the pressure in lots of different ways. I would actually argue that by increasing the pressure in a highly arousing situation where it's all a little bit too exciting, is more likely to increase tension and stress. Oh, I think as far as it's so much less safe. Exactly, and it makes it so much more, it makes it so much less less safe. So I would I would rather like a horse is able to respond to light pressure and check back in with you if you need them to stop and reinforce that really heavily. Yeah. Um, and you can you can do that in so many different ways, even if you just like you know, work on those transitions in the arena. If you're out for a hack and you're walking the entire time, then at no point do you get to practice stopping. You know, so if you're out for a hack and you're just going for a nice long walk and a hack, you can literally be walking along the road and then just at a random point just go, whoa, light pressure, stop, great, you can get in a treat or a scratch, and then walk on again. Yeah, and doing that within your hack reinforces that slow and stop. So you have it in a calm situation, so when you do need it, you have it. Yeah, but a lot of the time we don't practice it. No, and it's it's the mindset, isn't it, of I need something extra, I need something more. I don't say feel safe, I need something more. But the issue is, and particularly at this time of the year, this is a conversation I have a lot of people when they're you're calling up for help, and they've gone down the route of I got this head collar, I got this chain, I got this bit, I went to a stronger bit, and it's up, up, up, up. And horses desensitize. Horses can you know, we disent horses desensitize even if there's a chifney in their mouth, which will cause pain if you're holding on to that the whole way to the field, it will desensitize to that. Where do you go after that? You've already got a rope round its nose, you're leading in a chifney, it's not working, the horse is still aroused because the fundamental reason why the horse is aroused hasn't been addressed, escalation of pressure, it it is a dead end. You can only go so far and you're not going to make progress. And what hap- what what happens when you get caught out and you don't have your chifney? What what happens when no other tools in your toolbox drawn? Yeah, you know, exactly. And this is why we're so hot on it about you know the fundamental reason why the horse is behaving that way. And I would and I would argue again that that makes you feel even more insecure. And as they like, I can be a very anxious person, you know, so I like to know that I have good control over the horse and the animal that I'm around. And again, when we say control, it can kind of feel like a bit of a loaded term, but I want you know, like it can be really that it's okay to be afraid of them, it's half a ton of a flight animal, like you know, it's a completely you know, absolutely, but I have to say that like I am not scared of a horse that I know understands. Never, it's the ones who don't understand. I'm a little I am that's that's when I get worried. Yeah, or the ones that you know are in pain, and the behavior's actually coming from pain because even if they know what the answer is and how they should behave, they're still a flight animal, and if they're in pain, their response will be either fight, flight, or freeze. Yeah, like I I had the pleasure during the summer of riding the beautiful Reuben, um, you know, and as they I say I got to ride him bitless, which was lovely. At no point was I worried about him at all, because I know that Jenna's installs all of you know the cues. And so the fact Barbara's the only other person and the first ever person to ever been allowed to ride Ruben bitless. So and I was really interested because I've only ever ridden my own horse bitless, so I was like, I was so curious, and it was great because it actually really it felt the same. And I of course I was learning, I was going, like, oh, I wonder how these are gonna feel different because I've ridden lots of different horses bitted, you know. And I think now I'm up to you know, I I I did some retraining with a racehorse during the the summer, and I was like, I'm gonna put the bitness bridle on him, and again, I and I did it once I made sure he understood stop, go, turn, left, right, and within about a week or so put the bitness bridle on, and I felt really safe and comfortable. And I went out hacking with him with the bitness bridle on because I've really heavily re-install installed stop woe, and he had raced in July, and I hacked him out of bitness in September, you know. So I and again, that's I know that seems like a bit of a humble brag, so I do apologize. I am very proud of that, but it's because it I only did it when I was comfortable and confident that he understood stop and slow down, and that that was really, really installed. But that's a great literally great demonstration of how the research doesn't match up to real life. You've just said that took a couple of weeks. Yeah, and these horses and these studies are given half an hour, an hour, a couple of days. It it's a learning process, and that wouldn't have been fair on him, like in the slightest. So when I first when I first uh started working with him, I absolutely put the bit in because that's what he was used to, and it wasn't a case, he's on a new home, he's been asked to do something completely different being retrained as a race, like you know, from a racehorse. Um, he has a new rider on him, he's a different saddle on him, and in a new environment. It would be completely unfair to ask this horse to then try something different. So of course the bit went in. I made sure that I had everything installed. Stop, whoa, can you wait there? Turn left, right? Make sure I have all those basics done. And it was a couple of weeks, and also as well, like I handwalked that. I made sure that we had other things installed, like environment at task person before we start asking for for more from our horses. Yeah, um, so yeah, I think I think the idea of bidders versus is a very reductive debate. I don't think it's conducive to to the argument. I don't think having that debate is improving equine welfare. I don't think it supports riders feel more confident, safe with their horses. I think the one thing, if we could all do to help support our horses and riders, is to understand learning theory and apply it to our horses and give them time to to learn. That I feel like is a more important again, my bias behaviour. So Jen's look very serious. No, I'm just enjoying listening to you, and I'm I'm just thinking that the whole conversation needs to be, as we said before, it needs to be turned around, it shouldn't be bitless versus bitted, it should be bitless and bitted, and yeah, how horses learn. Yeah. Because at the end of the day, we mean Barbara and I we both still use bits and we go bitless. It depends on what you want, how we're feeling. I I would just say that we don't want to demonise, and there's no point in demonising. Barbara and I both use bits and and bitless. It depends on for me massively for my own horse, it even depends on the time of year, because I know that Ruben struggles physically. He does have arthritis, and he is a happier, his needs are met in the summer when he has more turnout, so he is physically more comfortable, and therefore I feel more comfortable working bitless with him when all of his needs are met because I feel safer, and I know that he is in a place that he can learn and understand. This time of year, where I know he's feeling his arthritis, there's not a lot we can do with it. The weather and oh my god, just the fields this year, it gets nobody's fault. Nobody is the weather is nobody's fault, right? Well, climate change. I think I think collectively it's all our fault. Oh god, we can get into overpopulation, uh infrastructure. But no, if I'm having a bad day and I want to feel safer, even though I have all the knowledge and the training is there, I can't get away from my own previous experiences in life that I still feel safer with a bit in my horse's mouth. Absolutely. And I think that's absolutely fine to talk about and say, and I think it's important to say it, so there's no shame and the in being one or the other, and there's no shame in moving from one and the other. Ultimately, it has to be what does that horse and human need in that moment? And if that means I can get my horse out hacking and moving and increase his steps per day and help his muscles, whether that's walking in hand or hacking, we're staying out of the arena right now because he doesn't need the arena, then I know I'm still riding on light pressure, I'm still going up my positive reinforcement, I'm still honing my halts and transitions, but the psychological element of the discussion can't be ignored. But you said it perfectly there, you know, you talked about all those other factors that are gonna impact his learning and his behaviour, and it circles back to you know that that that concept of how are they learning in the moment? You know, how are they behaving in the moment? Um, and I also think it is worth saying too, and this is really, really important, and that's why I like that study about foundation horses is your first memory is really important. Yeah, and a lot of horses' first memory of negative reinforcement will either be a head collar or it'll be you know, it might just be on and it might be passive, but actually learning to respond to rain aids will most likely be using a bit. So that first memory is really, really important um when it comes to learning. And sometimes there are times where you're like, okay, well, I need to go back to to those first kind of learning points. Um, I suppose really this was actually just based on one question that we got in from our from our listeners, so thank you. And it was how can I train a horse bitless? So hopefully we have answered that question. No, I don't think we've answered it in the slightest. Um, do apologize. We will attempt to answer your question in another podcast on how to actually train for it. Guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode of Dangerous of Both Ends and Tricky in the Middle. We definitely went into some dangerous territory and some tricky territory. Uh, hopefully you understand now why we called it this as the podcast, and I love being able to say the name. Um, it is it is tricky, it is dangerous. I think the the for me personally, the most dangerous thing that we can do is to focus on the equipment to achieve our training goals and not the behaviour, and looking at what our horse and as Jen says, the rider needs. Both of those are really, really important. Um, and that I think the conversation of bitted versus bitless is just reductive. Having that as a as an argument, as a verses, like one is gonna come out on top. I don't think that's helpful to the conversation, and I don't think it helps our horses and our riders. And I suppose that that's really where I'm coming from. Yeah, I would fully agree, and I think that you know, sticking to our tagline, it's it's dangerous, polarized opinions are just dangerous, and pitting bitless against bitted is a dangerous place because we're demonizing and we're creating divide, and actually you are reducing the tools in your toolkit. Whereas if we can combine and pick the best out of every area, there's so many different combinations of people and horses, no two partnerships are the same, and different different equipment is gonna suit different groupings better. Yeah, and as soon as you demonize and say, Well, we're not do you we're not using bits at all, that's not gonna meet the owner where they need to be. Yeah, and it's also it can actually be really, really confusing for a horse if they've spent their entire life being bitted and that's what they understand, and then suddenly we just go, right, cool, that's not how the world is anymore. You're just gonna be bitted, and then you are gonna face difficulty because the horse doesn't understand, and that's not actually very fair in the horse. So we want to sit in the middle, it's tricky, it's challenging because we have the society and cultural opinion that one is better than the other. If we can remove that and just go, it's just equipment, the learning is what and understanding is what's important, if we can work from there, then I think we're in a good place. But the whole topic is tricky. Oh, I just want to add one little thing, um, just as a call to our listeners. In this episode, we've included more research and we've you know done some critiques and papers. Did you enjoy that? Is that something you'd like more of? Do you prefer more personal stories? Get in touch with us. We enjoy making the podcast, but the podcast is only beneficial if it's benefiting our listeners. Yeah. So reach out, send us a message Instagram, Facebook, email, whatever works for you. What are you enjoying? What would you like more of in the podcast? Please make sure you address that to Jennifer. She is our admin girl, and now it's on record. Now I don't have to reply at all. It's on the record. Great. Send your comments, criticisms directly to Jennifer Nash. Well, that's fine because Barbara's our editor, so I'll take that. I know I've got I've got like quite a lot of editing to do, so yeah, um, right. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, um enjoy enjoy the horses. See you later, guys. Until next time. Bye bye.