When putting a bridle on a horse, it can be helpful to use turn-it training techniques and sugar cubes to get a horse to accept the bit. Learn about holding onto the halter when putting a bridle on a horse with help from a horse riding teacher in this free video on horse bridles.
This is Maggie Connolly with Hawthorne Stables, and we're going to go through how to put on a bridle. I like to use turn it training techniques, and I use sugar cubes in order to teach a horse how to accept the bit when putting on and applying the bridle. But the first thing that you want to do is, with your horse haltered, you want to undo your cross ties, make sure that you're holding on to your halter so your horses can't go anyway, anywhere. You want to put your reins over the horse's head. This way if the horse does walk off, I have something that's holding and attaching me to the horse so that I can keep him here. Then what I do is I undo the halter, take the halter away (putting my hand over the horse's nose to keep him here), and then I'm going to bring the bit up to his mouth. I as I said use sugar cubes to entice the horse to accept the bit, and what I'll do is I will properly hold grab the sugar cube and take the bit there. Oops, he dropped the sugar cube. And putting the, the head stop, hair is over his ears, bringing his ears through. Then I put my cavesson inside my cheek pieces. Now this bridle needs a little bit of an adjustment for him. What I like to do is I like to attach my cavesson first, making sure that it's snug, not too tight, and through the keepers maybe, around my cheek piece with the keepers. I'm on my drop nose band, coming down underneath the bit, coming back up through underneath the chin, and making sure that it is snug and also not too tight. You want to make sure when using a drop nose band that you're not, that you don't have the cavesson too low. You don't want to cut off the horse's airway. His nasal passages go up through here and if these were too tight I could possibly cut off the horse's nasal passages, and it's obviously wouldn't be good. So then through the keepers. And then once again, I use the sugar cube to reward and to begin getting the horse salivating and accepting the bit. I like to use German silver bits 'cos that seems to be the type of a bit that horses accept more naturally and they causes salivation. And that's how you put on a bridle. This is Maggie Connolly with Hawthorne Stables.
