When Did I Start Using Bitless Bridles And What Were The Obstacles I Encountered?

As I said in my first article, I started learning how to ride back in 2012 in Transylvania at the riding school next to where I was living. Back then I didn't have the money to pay for riding lessons so I was just hanging around watching the horses in the stables and watching other people riding.

I was mesmerized by these magnificent four legged creatures, by their perfectly shaped, athletic, fit bodies majestically moving under the riders' indications. Watching them turning left and right, going faster, slowing down, stopping and walking off with the riders on their back was a true enigma for me as I just couldn't understand how on Earth anybody could coordinate such a big and powerful animal by just sitting on their back...

What I wasn't able to see at that time was the fear, the boredom, the unhappiness and quite often the pain in the horses' eyes. I didn't have the capacity to read a horse's body language yet. I couldn't tell if they were feeling happy, sad, frustrated, bored, angry or playful...All I've been seeing was how gratious and superb they were.

So I started going regularly to this equestrian centre near to where I lived, watching people riding, jumping, having riding lessons and I became more and more fascinated about the beauty of these animals. I began to ask Mary, the riding instructor if there was anything I could help around with and as she was happy to give me small tasks to do, I got more and more involved with the regular work that needed to be done in any equine facility. So I quickly found myself poo picking, mucking out, grooming horses, picking out the hooves and even tacking up and getting horses ready for their riding lessons.

I just found a photo with me and a small black horse called Nerone which I fell in love with at Mr. Bentley's stables and which I'd been taking out to the big arena so that he could have a good run and move around a bit. :)

Until one day, not long after I stepped foot on that place, the equine centre's owner, Mr. Bentley asked me if I'd like to learn how to ride. Pointless to say that that was one of the best days of my life and I'll be forever greatful to this man for not only giving me this great opportunity and doing so without asking anything in return. I did offer though to help with the cleaning of the stables, which I did, only because I felt this was a fair thing to do.

So I began having regular lessons with horses tacked up with English bridles, snaffle bits, English saddles and tie downs as this is the way it's commonly done in most of the riding schools. The first few lessons were about lunging the horse round and round with the lunging line attached to the bit, but after that I got to hold the reins and had a go by myself learning how to lead the horse at a walk, trot and finally at a canter.

This sounds all great and dandy for the average horse people, right? Only there were a few things going on that my riding instructor was teaching me to do which I didn't agree with. I'm fully aware of the fact that it was me that was the complete beginner and the woman teaching me was a professional rider competing in many prestigious horse jumping events, but these things just didn't feel right to me. I really appreciated that she was taking the time and the effort to teach me how to ride and of course I benefited from every lesson getting better and better with moving in sync with the horse, but there were just a few technical things I wasn't keen on doing or that I didn't find appropriate.

It's nothing new under the sun, in fact (unfortunately) the list below is kind of just how things are normally done at riding schools:

• Tightening the reins so that I can feel the horse's mouth
• Pulling on both reins through the bit at the same time as hard as necessary in order to stop the horse
• Using tie-downs to prevent the horse from lifting their head
• Using the whip to spank them every time they wouldn't obey my command
• Lunging the horse in endless circles making them become bored and frustrated, loosing all their interest of being around people

Doesn't it sound familiar? I'm sure it does.

So as much as I was enjoying the riding lessons, I didn't seem to be able to get a good feeling about that piece of metal in the horse's mouth. On the contrary, I was getting more and more uncomfortable by having to ride like that. And that's when the time came to thank Mr. Bentley and Mary for all of their kind support in initiating me in the art of riding and so I moved on to finding another way of riding, one that I'd be totally comfortable with, one that would suit me best.

I began my research on the internet, watching and reading all I could find about horse riding and training and luckily after just a few days I already knew what I was looking for. There was this term called Natural Horsemanship (NH) that I stumbled upon, which seemed to be the answer for all my prayers regarding horses and riding. I was quite intrigued about this training method because it was promising a wonderful relationship with your horse by relying on equine psychology, understanding how horses behave within the herd and the differences between a prey animal which a horse is, and the human as a predator.

This natural horsemanship method was promising that once you spent enough time with the horse by approaching them in the right manner and by doing some simple exercises from the ground, you would begin to notice that the horse would be listening to you more and more, for me, the horse became much calmer and confident and if you can get a horse to this state, then you find yourself only one small step away from riding them bitless, as I did.

This sounded like heaven to me!...I wanted to learn everything about being able to ride a horse without having to put anything at all in their mouth to control them and natural horsemanship truly seemed to be the perfect way of doing that.

So now that I knew exactly what I wanted to learn about, the next step was to find a place where I could do that. I immediately started to search for equestrian centres that would specialize on natural horsemanship. Well, unfortunately my determination wasn't enough for finding a place like that just because at that time those particular kinds of riding centers didn't really exist in Europe and I didn't have the money to travel to the USA to pay to learn at one of these famous NH trainers such as (to name a few): Pat Parelli, Monty Roberts, Warwick Schiller or Clinton Anderson.

The good news was that there were many Parelli lisenced instructors all over the world and I was lucky to find all of them listed on Pat Parelli's website. So I started sending an e-mail to each and every one of them asking for a chance to learn about this training method that they were teaching.

And voila! After two months of intense searches I finally got a positive answer from a well-known Parelli trainer called Berni Zambail who just happened to be needing some working students. Needless to say that the day this happened was another best day of my life and I'll be forever greatful for this gentleman and his wife, Christine Zambail who not only taught me the basics of natural horsemanship in Germany, but they also treated me as a member of their family and looked after me making sure I had everything I needed.

Here's a picture from those times. It's me sitting on my favourite horse, Dragon (well, I have to admit, every horse becomes my favourite in the end, that's just the way it is, haha).

Although none of the NH trainers mentioned above are exclusively bitless instructors, one thing they all have in common is that every single one of them uses THE SAME WAY of starting a horse and that is: BITLESS! And they usually do that by using a simple rope halter normally with two knots on the nose area and sometimes with four knots.

So I learnt the principles of NH and applied them in the basic exercises both from the ground and in the saddle. The only part I skipped was the use of a bit and I was more than happy with the results! I was indeed very pleased to see that all I wanted to achieve with a horse was more than possible by using nothing else than a ordinary rope halter. It was absolutely amazing!

Finally back home in Transylvania with this new knowledge I gained, my next goal was to learn directly from a true bitless horse trainer, from somebody who was handling horses entirely bitless, from A to Z, no matter what he or she was using them for.

Of course I started my research again only this time I wasn't lucky enough to find a whole list of bitless instructors in one place, but for your information, my list included: Missy Wryn, Justin Dunn, Rick Gore and Chuck Mintzlaff.

My dilemna was that I had to choose one of them, right? Actually, what I truly would have wanted to do was to go and learn from all of them but as I financially wasn't in the situation of doing that, I then chose the one I could afford and that happened to be Missy Wryn. Dear Missy, if you were to ever read this, I want you to know that I am deeply greatful for all the teachings I got from you and all the great support you gave me through your course as well as after that. You are a wonderful, positive person and someone who will be in my thoughts forever!

With that decision taken, I bought two semi-wild horses from a man from a village, who had roughly around 30 horses and kept them in a pretty much miserable condition, I won't describe here, but that's why the horses especially the mare, was outright agressive that came out from the fear inducted by mistreatment. Anyway, I was happy I found both of them at the same place and at a good price for me and that they were not used to any kind of gear, they were not even tamed properly, because that was what I needed for Missy's course: to start these horses under saddle.

Anyway, I did all the exercises from Missy's program, the horses got used to the saddle and rider and I got a certificate approving that I was a gentle bitless horse trainer and also got a good insight of how a genuine bitless instructor's training program looks like.

This was my mare, Swallow, during the training:

And this was my other horse, Bear, the mini stallion :) under the training period:

My two main conclusions after all these experiences were that:

1. All natural horsemanship trainers have the same teaching philosophy and kind of the same exercises, the biggest difference lies in:


• how correctly they use them (which I will cover in another article)
• how gentle or agressive they are in the training process


2. Generally bitless equine instructors are behaving more gentle and humane in their approach to the horse (and to other human beings as well) than those who use bits and all kinds of restraints in their training.

So after I made myself a clear image about what natural horsemanship was, I then moved on with one of my horses to this fancy equestrian centre where I was going to work for a few months. That was this equine tourism facility that I mentioned in my first article where all the horses were kept in standard stables, closed in boxes most of the time and taken out almost exclusively only for using them for riding lessons.

That's why I shortly moved out of there and went to another equine facility, a less fancy one this time. There I worked as a riding instructor, horse trainer and trekking leader. The horses had a better life there, they were closed only during the night and were kept in the field at day time, at least this is how they were kept in the summer. I liked the fact that I had the owner's permission to handle them without using the bits and trained them for bitless riding.

I spent happy and useful days here until the end of that summer came, but by shock, I accidentally found out that the horses would be locked up during winter time...😮 This is not only catalogued by me as abuse but also meant that a big part of my work done in the summer would have been lost by spring. That's only because a horse that isn't constantly exposed to the world's stimulus and used on a regular basis will get more fearful and uncertain after a while...

So when I'd confirmed that the horses had no access at all to the field all winter long, I said my thanks and goodbye and just moved on again.

So, I went to a friend, Landon's place where he kept the horses free in a field with two sheds: one for the horses and one for the hay bales. I started to teach riding lessons but it didn't take us very far as a business as neither of us had the financial background to set it up properly. We kept on trying for about a year and then I decided it was time to move on again. :)

Before leaving, I gave my horses to my friend, as a present, because I knew I couldn't provide a good place for them to live in my home town and because I also knew that they would be looked after very well.


What does a good life mean to a horse besides good food, water and regular vet checks in my point of view?

• Freedom, meaning being able to have a good run around if they feel like it
• Social life: being kept together with at least one other horse
• A shelter to hide from heavy rain, big wind or burning sun
• Regular, pleasant interaction with people
• Being used bitless and barefoot (without metal shoes on their hooves)

I left my horses with Landon as I trusted him that he would provide them with all of the above conditions, which I wasn't able to do at the time.

You can see them both below having a chill in their new home:

I then moved back to my home town thinking of what my next move should be regarding equine work and so I stumbled upon a guy, Ryan, who I became very good friends with. He had two beautiful hucul horses (hucul is a hungarian native horse breed), a mare and a gelding, but unfortunately did not have enough time to spend with them because of his work as a musician.

Here's a photo of both of his horses (Marcsi and Robi):

Anyhow, we agreed that I'd use his horses for teaching riding lessons mostly for children and as he agreed that I could use them bitless, I was more than happy to collaborate. I did a few training sessions with them introducing the rope halter as a riding tool instead of a bitted bridle and began the lessons in the small paddock.

Most of the time I'd hold the lessons by myself but sometimes there would be more clients at the same time, a group of children for example, and then I'd have the lesson together with Ryan. He'd use the horses in a snaffle bridle while I'd use them in a rope halter. I'll be honest, we had a few friendly arguments  regarding bits and bitless horse handling but we always respected each other's point of view and had a fructuous cooperation overall.

See below, one of my students having a lesson:

OK, so a good few months later Ryan decided to sell the horses and buy some taller ones which would be more suitable for endurance riding as this was his next goal to achieve. And to be totally honest about it, although Ryan and I were good friends, it still bothered me seeing the horses being pulled around by the bits in their mouth, especially when I got to spend more and more time with them. I mean these horses became my friends as well and it obviously hurt me watching them being hurt and misunderstood.

I only wish that Ryan would have listened to his horses more...

Anyway, I've learned a lot from that experience as well and when our partnership ended it was even more clear to me what I really wanted was to be around people with the same vision about horses as me. I was longing to find a way to educate people about a safer and genuine, honest way of being around horses. As I mentioned in my first article, the very first step of doing that is going completely bitless.

I wanted to be able to enjoy the company of a horse by riding out on the hills and in the forests, and not only that, I wanted the horse to feel the same way as I do. I wanted them to enjoy going out and having a nice walk or run in the middle of nature or whatever the surroundings were. I wanted them as my good friend that I could just wander around with and them to see me as their good friend whom they can feel safe and relaxed with at all times.

Even more than that, I wanted to make it possible for other people to experience the friendship of a horse on the deepest levels as possible. What I really aspired for was to create the perfect environment where both horse and human would enjoy each other's company while enjoying the beauty of nature.

And it suddenly clicked to me the way I could achieve all this was by having my own bitless trekking centre, or by having it in partnership with someone else who has the same vision and plan as I have!

With that said, a new phase of my equine journey began...

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