Bridleless Training

Any advice on how to go about it?
I've been working with my mare here and there after our rides, but now I want to really get into it & let her have a break from dressage but I don't know what to do.
Any advice would be welcome.
(we're already working on her moving off leg, & seat)

That's about all there is to it, train them to work off your seat and leg. To start always ask through those aids then keep your bridle on only to remind the horse what you already asked for. Over time you'll need to remind them less and less until you're riding with a bridle and never using it.
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At the mane event Stacy Westfall had a clinic on teaching the horse the verbal cue to stop then back along with using the seat and using the reins to do the same thing. Pretty much it was her lessons on how she built up to bridless riding. It was really helpful, I would recommend googling/you tubing it. I'm sure she has more than just stopping somewhere. Could be helpful! I tried some of it, the very basics and it really made my horse think!

Oh, thanks. Someone that was visiting my barn was trying to explain how they did it and they made it sound so difficult. LOL. I was like its working so far with my mare and I'm only working on seat and legs, only using the bridle when she doesn't listen. :p

Love Stacy Westfall!
Was that this year or...?

Yep this year, on the Saturday. She had 3 girls of different levels of riding and horses at different levels of training, she would have them walk and ask for the stop to demonstrate that some horses will only listen to 1 or 2 of the 3 cues. Then she went on to explain that the horse should stop when given any 1 of the 3 cues. I wish I took videos of parts of it. One was a finished reining horse so it was pretty much awesome.. but one was a younger horse with not as much training and the girl had the horse stopping and was teaching it to back by bumping on the horses shoulders at a consistant speed and pressure until the horse thinks heeyyy if I back up, this will stop. And the whole thing was about getting the horse to think and positive reinforcement. It was really great. Of course, that's just stopping and backing...but I guess when you're riding bridless having a horse that stops is pretty much the most important thing! Sp I guess that's a start

Yeah, I'll have to get a video of Molly stopping and backing once the weather is nice again.

Was this it? Its the only one I could find.

I'll do some reseach! And hopefully find something!

Stacy Westfall
Whoa: Teaching the Stop From Beginning to Bridleless


This is what I found so far.. that's what it was called but it touched on more than that.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="Introduction to Riding a Horse Bridle less - Rick Gore Horsemanship - YouTube" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Not familiar with Rick Gore methods, but the title looked good on this haha... hopefully it's helpful..I don't have volume on my work computer, so I didn't watch.. So this could be completely useless.

And that link didn't work the way I wanted it to haha