Happy Horses Bitless
The Journey
I grew up in Tasmania, Australia, in a small country town. No-one in my family had anything to do with horses or any particular interest in them, but for some reason I was smitten. At the age of 9 I would lay awake waiting for everyone going to sleep, then I'd get out of bed and climb out my window. I'd make my way in the dark to the neighbour’s paddock, where my true love lived. Her name was Patch and she was the most beautiful creature in the world. A rich chestnut and white paint, Patch had the heart of an angel. I'd climb through the fence to just be with her. Sometimes I'd climb up on her back and lay there smelling her sweet horsey aroma, listening to the sounds of munching grass while gazing heavenward to the stars. Hours would pass unnoticed, I was in bliss.
I would visit Patch during the day too, but only from the other side of the fence. I thought no-one knew of my nocturnal adventures to the paddock and was sure it was extremely naughty, so I didn't tell a soul. One day as I walked past my neighbour, he said under his breath, 'there's a bridle and saddle in the shed'. I nearly fainted, he knew, AND he was saying I could ride his horse. My heart pounded as I went to the shed and then had my first ever ride on Patch out in the open daylight. There followed many years of joyful hours together with Patch. I could take her out of the paddock, and I rode her
everywhere. One year her owner decided to have a foal with her. The baby was born and looked just like her mum. I wanted to be a horse, I spent my days lying in the long grass with the two of them.
Patch circa 1973
Hunting with the club, circa 1978
By now I had a bit of a reputation in my small country town. People started giving me their horses to ride. I didn't have enough money to buy my own and it wasn't something my parents would buy for me, but it didn't matter as I always had beautiful ponies and horses in my life. A local racehorse man took me under his wing and taught me everything he knew, thanks Jack. He trained steeplechasers and wanted me to be his training jockey. He would lunge his steeplechasers over the jumps with me on board. I particularly loved one huge horse, Black Baron. I kept my horses at his property and he took me to hunt meetings on the weekends. These were drag hunts only, but still had the baying hounds and red coats and full pelt galloping in a herd over the jumps. Winters were cold in Tasmania, and we'd always stop for a break and a whisky flask would be handed around, then we jump back on and gallop away. I loved it. I had a few big jumping horses by this stage and started getting into show jumping. Jack took me to the shows so I could jump and taught me to drive a car while pulling a horse float.
I turned 17 and everything changed. I moved to Sydney and became a city girl. I started travelling and lived in the UK, then Greece, and travelled to other countries. There were few horses in my life through these years. In my mid to late 20's I became the proud mum of two gorgeous girls. I moved back to Tassie and lived on a farm so I got a horse, Donald, a snow white 3yo 10hh Shetland and bundle of fluffy joy. Then a quarterhorse, then a lovely mare. As the girls grew up we spent many hours on horseback riding in the bush and on the beach. Years further and we moved to NSW with more beautiful horses joining our lives, Frente, Goldie, Darcy, Soray and many others. I started buying ex-racehorses and retraining then to be riding horses and gave riding lessons to local kids. I was back in the world of horses!
Donald - teaching my daughters to ride.
My daughters went to Pony Club and I became a Pony Club Instructor. We entered a new world of hacking and dressage and competitive riding. We were basically bush riders, and now we were in the world of 'correct English riding'and the pressure to conform was huge. We had riding lessons to 'get up to scratch' and I started doing dressage. I began my Coach training with The Equestrian Federation of Australia (now known as EA) and began an Equine Science degree at Charles Sturt University. For six years I did my degree part-time while working as a riding instructor and trail guide, raising two teenagers and doing my EFA coach training. I was working full-time as a trail guide and riding coach.
Darcy - my soul mate with 4 legs.
I undertook years of riding lessons to gain my coaching certificate and used harsher and harsher bits. I rode with spurs and a whip. I had come a long way since my days of laying on Patch in the moonlight. And then something happened. A client of mine was getting a bitless bridle and I decided I wanted one too. We went to Equitana together and chose our bridles. I went home to try it on my horses. I had three main riding horses at home and another four at work. I tried them with the bitless bridle and they all went really well in it. It felt great because I wasn’t hurting my horses anymore. I rode the same as I had been taught and was impressed with the results I was getting from the bitless. My horses were softer and more responsive and stayed calmer in elevated situations. The first time I catered my dressage horse in the bitless he did the softest canter I'd ever felt while being fully collected - without a bit! I started crying while we catered around, apologising to him for all the years of pain I had put him through unnecessarily. This moment was a cross-roads for me, it changed me forever. The two green broke brumbies I rode at work still reacted to things, but in the bitless bridle were easily corrected then instantly calm. With the bit they would end up being hot and difficult after a correction and I never realised it was the pain of the bit causing it until I took the bit away.
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Then the magic of the bitless bridle really started having an effect on me. The connection between myself and the horses started opening up and changing. There was no longer pain for them while being ridden so they slowly emerged from a place where they’d been hiding. It was only then I realised what a huge thing a bit is, for the horse. For us it disappears when we pop it in the mouth and the mouth closes. We can’t see it so we don’t think about it. But the horse does. The whole time the horse is thinking about the pain in their mouth. Without that pain the horse starts thinking more about other things, about the rider and what’s happening. They start responding to more subtle cues, which they can now perceive without the loud distraction of the bit. The rider can get lighter and lighter with the cues and the horse will hear them. My whole way of thinking about horses took a step back to where I'd started as a young girl.
Rumpy the brumby, a great teacher.
I was seeing horses in a different light, as fully sentient beings. The innate understanding I'd had as a child, and then lost as I became an adult, returned. I looked at Natural Horsemanship and Animal Communication, but really all I needed to do was look inside, everything I needed to know was still there. Now I listen all the time. I don't spend my days telling horses what to do. I spend my days listening to what they have to say. And I continue learning as they continue teaching me. When I stopped forcing horses to do my will, I saw them so differently.
And then a time came when I realised that while I was working with horses, I was also working with their humans. My understanding of horses had grown and developed enormously over the years, but not my understanding of people. So I embarked on a journey of discovery and completed a Diploma of Counselling. During the years it took to complete, I came to view and understand my own species in a whole new way. We too are the same as the horses, all doing the best we can with what we have. My compassion and openess to people now matches that for horses.
All over the world I am connecting with others who are on a similar path to me. The understanding that animals are sentient beings with their own thoughts and emotions is now an accepted idea. The future for us all, regardless if we have two legs, four or none, is looking good, but will still take some work. My contribution is to help remove bits from horse’s mouths, and to support and guide people to see horses in a different way.
Suzy Maloney B.Eq.Sc.Dip.Couns.
