She's never had a shoe on since I had her (mainly because a) she was turned away for the winter; b) it was a recommended treatment for navicular; c) she likes being barefoot and c) it's cheaper!) and because of issues with her putting her tongue over the bit, I bought her a bitless bridle.
It arrived today, and it's a cautious woohoo.
We've been out in the school in hand tonight, and she was yielding nicely though I think we were both a bit confused as to what we were meant to be doing! In the end, I knotted the reins and walked beside her, and just moved her head away with the reins from her withers (if that makes sense) if she started looking for treats. As soon as she moved her head away from my pocket she got loads of praise, so she made good progress.
She let herself down when we did our exercise at the mounting block (she was fidgeting a lot when I wanted to mount, so we did some work on standing quietly for a week or so), in that she started swinging her back end away from me, backing up or generally being a pain, so we have to go back a few steps with that one before I'm going to try riding her in it. I got her to stand still eventually, but I could see she was getting bored, so we left it there.
All things being equal, I'm very pleased with her considering it's something totally new to us (she's ten and has always been ridden in a snaffle with flash), and she's a bright girl so I'm sure we'll be where we need to be in a day or two.
It arrived today, and it's a cautious woohoo.
We've been out in the school in hand tonight, and she was yielding nicely though I think we were both a bit confused as to what we were meant to be doing! In the end, I knotted the reins and walked beside her, and just moved her head away with the reins from her withers (if that makes sense) if she started looking for treats. As soon as she moved her head away from my pocket she got loads of praise, so she made good progress.
She let herself down when we did our exercise at the mounting block (she was fidgeting a lot when I wanted to mount, so we did some work on standing quietly for a week or so), in that she started swinging her back end away from me, backing up or generally being a pain, so we have to go back a few steps with that one before I'm going to try riding her in it. I got her to stand still eventually, but I could see she was getting bored, so we left it there.
All things being equal, I'm very pleased with her considering it's something totally new to us (she's ten and has always been ridden in a snaffle with flash), and she's a bright girl so I'm sure we'll be where we need to be in a day or two.
