Saturday, November 15, 2008

Near gear


It's beautiful. Those folks at Black Pond have exceeded my expectations with their lead rope, reins and halter. Here's a picture of the riding halter which you can clip your reins into.

I'll post more tomorrow, I forgot my camera and these are from my phone. The reins are like buttah... I'm just waiting for one little rope they left off. Fantastic detailing and craftsmanship at Black Pond. Glad I spent more time shopping around so I could get the color combos I wanted. I like black on Canyon because he has those black touches on his ears and in his mane...

Thanks to my big sister who bought them for me as a birthday gift. I'd say you shouldn't have, but it wouldn't be sincere. You'd read right through it.

Of course I had to try riding Canyon without a bit in - only his riding halter. He did very well in the arena, where we are working on gaits and transitions. Then we went out on a brief trail ride with Rudy and Canyon did fairly well only in his riding halter, particularly when I noticed that I was nervous. When I got all zen-ish, he calmed down. It was very windy and he still did great other than obsessively checking the pasture for dreaded Texas hill country horse eating crocodiles.

Sometimes you are leading and ya don't even know it.

Not sure I'm ready to give up the bit yet, but it was a good experience. How many times to I have to read that a bit isn't what stops your horse before I believe it?

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Really fun places to go: If you haven't seen the lying down of the horse technique, get thee to GNH's site right now. Very cool video!

2 comments:

Melanie said...

Hey...I didn't know that you had a blog!!!! I thought when I checked before, your profile was disabled?

Anywho, I am loving this post about this halter. I am looking into bitless bridles for Bo, because he hates any type of bit that we have ever used on him.

In the arena, and on some trail rides, we have ridden him with just a rope around his neck, but when we are on long rides, or out with a large group, I want to have more control.

Unknown said...

When I was first posting I had some weird setting on my blog. Set on super spy or something! LOL

I tried a contraption when I first got Canyon, it crossed under and would squeeze his nose. I guess the correct term is that it would "apply pressure."

So far I like this one much better, it's just a pull to the side or down and it seems to work just fine.

You ride with just a rope around his neck? holy cow. I have a feeling we'd never leave the barn. :D