Bitless Bridles Seen as Safer Alternative for Horses in New Study

 from www.thehorse.com

Previous studies evaluating the behavioural responses of horses to different types of bridles found that horses perform at least as well, if not better, with a bitless bridle than a jointed snaffle.

To probe deeper into the issue, Robert Cook, FRCVS, PhD, and Daniel Mills, BVSc, PhD, IL TM, CBiol MIBiol, MRCVS, tested their hypothesis that a horse’s behavior would change–for the better–when ridden with a bitless bridle, compared to a bridle with a bit. (Cook developed and patented the cross-under Bitless Bridle in the United States.)

The study involving four ridden horses of various backgrounds was devised to test the “null” theory that said a horse would show no improvement in behaviour by being ridden in a bitless bridle.Researchers, however, predicted that there would be a change and that a horse’s behaviour would improve when being ridden bitless.

Four horses, none of which had ever been ridden in a cross-under bitless bridle, were ridden through two 4-minute exercise tests, first bitted, using a plain jointed snaffle, then bitless.
An independent judge marked the 27 phases of each test on a 10-point scale and comments and scores were recorded on a video soundtrack.The results disproved the accepted “null” theory and supported the researcher’s predictions.

All four horses accepted the cross-under bitless bridle without hesitation.
The mean average score of the horses performing the ridden test when bitted was 37%. This rose to 64% when they were ridden bitless and asked to perform the same movements.