Re: going bitless/grass-grabbing

[Abigail Aiyagari <abby1@itsa.ucsf.edu>]

This may sound stupid, but I've found that my horse tries to eat on the
trail because he is hungry.  If I take him out in the morning soon after
his breakfast hay, he does not reach for grass at all.  However, if I take
him out in the evening right before his dinner, THEN he grabs at grass.  I
can keep him from doing this by giving him 1/2 hour of grazing or some
beet pulp before we go out.  He knows he's not really allowed to eat grass
unless I tell him it's OK, but he just can't help himself when he's really
hungry.  For a while there I did work on letting him grab as much as he
wanted as long as he kept moving along at the pace I had chosen (I was
tired of pulling on his face), but when he got to the point of being able
to toodle along at an extended trot while mowing the side of the trail, I
decided this wasn't going to work out after all (felt like I was riding
the Headless Horse).

To answer your actual question, I have had very good luck with both a
plain sidepull and a rope halter.  The rope halter definitely gives more
"control"; the sidepull I have has a 3/4" wide, soft noseband.  My horse
is very sensitive to rein aids, however, and I can spin him around from a
bolt with either the sidepull or the rope halter.  But one thing you might
want to check into is just using a rope halter/lead combo as a
bridle--that's really all the Parelli hackamore is, but at a hefty markup.
Natural Horse Supply (www.naturalhorsesupply.com) sells very well-made
halters and nice heavy lead ropes at a reasonable price, or if you really
get into it they're not that hard to make yourself (you can get the rope
at a marine supply place).  It doesn't really save you any money to make
them yourself, though, since the rope is expensive on its own and the
people who sell them get a good quantity discount.  The Parelli halter is
very nice, but I'm not sure it's worth the extra $$.  The other thing you
can do is just buy a rope halter and a pair of rope reins with scissor
snaps, and you can clip the reins to the fiador knot or the sides of the
noseband on the halter.  Then you can easily use the reins to tie as well.

Happy trails,
Abby (why do I have to modify EVERY piece of tack I buy?)
Cola (why do we have tack again?)
Ranjit (what are you ordering now?)