circus bridle 3000

One thing I've *always* loved about horses is.... tinkering with tack. Taking apart bridles and putting them back together again is basically the best kind of puzzle -- mechanically satisfying and of course oh-so-horsey!

obvi the snackamore is for sharing snacks -- like fluffy sweet cupcakes!

True story, I always loved when we got new lesson horses into the program at the barn I worked at during college, bc that meant I got to cobble together new bridles!!!

hmmm, it's evolving tho

Oooooh and one time I totally took apart an equestrian teammate's mother's full harness during a leather-cleaning-fundraising-party and.... Yea. She may or may not have regretted my choices when she had to put it all back together again. Whoops!

lol the OG #sadmare in one of the earliest versions

Anyway tho. This strange fixation with gadgetry means that I have a rather large assortment of various mismatched strap goods. No bridle epitomizes the freak show quiiiiite as nicely as my hackamore -- which, of course, was fondly referred to as the "Circus Bridle" back during the Isabel days bc of it's many absurd iterations and evolutions. 

wasn't long before charlie learned to play in it too!

Naturally, Charlie inherited the hackamore too. It's generally our play time bridle -- for hacking out and galloping freely across open fields, etc. With Isabel, it was never ever a "work" bridle bc even with the curb wrapped up in fleece, the leverage was much too strong for her. But it was perfect for bitless wanderings and tasting tours of the countryside.

it's perfect for pacing and all sorts of fun adventures. pc Amy Flemming Waters

Charlie, on the other hand, has exactly zero problems with leverage -- and actually in some ways goes a bit better with it since he does love a little leaning. So while the hackamore has been, by and large, reserved for trails and travels etc, we've also played a little more purposefully in it too.

ha i even tried to make a hack-a-snaff double bridle for xc... but ooof guys, the hate mail was no joke

The cool thing about the hackamore is that... You just don't carry contact in it the same as you do with a traditional bit. Which, for me on my horse, has the effect of basically giving me *one choice* when I feel like I need to do something. And that choice is: add leg. Bc that's your most direct point of contact in this type of bridle. 

that time we acquired fun new tack to pretend play at race horses! pc Austen Gage

And ya know. It's generally accepted that "adding leg" is almost never the wrong choice when riding horses. Like, ok, sometimes it is --- as any of you who have had to deal with taking a nagging leg off a dead horse will be all too familiar... 

obvi our fun new pieces found a home on the circus bridle hackamore!

But in jumping, generally leg = good. And I like that the hackamore gives me that feeling while simultaneously taking away my (and Charlie's) ability to lean on each other via the bit.

and they've stayed there ever since!

Meanwhile, the hackamore is also a prettttty serious set of brakes. Esp for a tank of a horse like Charlie. The beauty tho is that it's like an anti-lock system. He can't just bear down on it, or lean into it. That's why it was such an attractive choice for xc all those years ago --- the idea was that I'd be able to let up on the e-brake and let him move on out, while still having confidence I'd be able to bring him back again.

have tack, will experiment!

Tho ya know. Time is a helluva drug, and these days Charlie kinda has the opposite problem -- I spend more time trying to get him up and going than I do trying to slow him down. 

including dressing it back up again with this beautiful custom snap-on browband from Amelia at Dark Jewel Designs (this particular one was designed for our berry outfit lol)

But since nothing really matters anyway, I thought maybe the hackamore would work for this too? Our last lesson was full of Charlie being a bitchy bronto, but then he was an absolute rockstar at the hunter pace (in his hackamore). So I thought, eh, fuck it. Let's do the little jumper show in the hackamore too, and see what happens? 

swapped out the cheek plates too for experimenting with a leather vs chain curb

Obviously I cleaned it up a little bit from it's ridiculous all-blue non-leather getup lol... Snapped on a nice browband from Amelia at Dark Jewel Designs, with one of my favorite custom bead strings that would work well with the reddish spare rubber reins in my locker. 

ta da! we'll see how it goes!
(for those curious, that's a Back on Track pad under the crown. it's nothing special, but nice to have cushion considering the leverage effect. you could get around that with a more modern padded headstall than this hunt-style Stubben)

And ya know, it basically more or less worked out at the show! Nothing obvious enough to make me feel any sort of feeling one way or another... Except that it might take some getting used to. Or ya know, it might end up not working. 

Charlie and I both love to lean, and at this point in my riding life I'm fine with a little co-dependence if that's what it takes lol. Tho... It did seem like there were a few moments in the show where the hackamore possibly interfered a little bit in how he used himself. That could just be a "getting used to it" thing, but just in case, I swapped the chain for a leather strap to give me a bigger margin of error. 

We'll see how it goes! If nothing else, it's fun to tinker around with tack lol...