Bill Oliver on Bit Usage

Bill Oliver celebrated a birthday yesterday, and he has been a frequent guest on the Horseman's Corner Radio program sharing over 45 years of experience on horsemanship, education, covering the psychology and natural language of horses. Let's listen into an interview that Howard Hale did with them years ago, but still applies today.   Howard asked Bill what kind of bits he prefers.   "As far as bits go and all that, we ride all of our young colts and stuff in a snaffle bit. It doesn't really matter to me if it's a D-ring or O-ring snaffle. And of course we're focused on direct pressure, a horse coming to direct pressure. And so everything's pretty much at that point in their training. A direct rein. You know, you're typically pulling the horse. And then as we transition to the training where the horse, you know, we'll work into, I write quite a bit with a bosal. Three different sides of bosals, but also ride my horses in a transition bit, which would be something like a short shank. An Argentine snaffle or a Tom Thumb or something comparable to that in the transition phase there. And of course at that point, we're starting to introduce a support rein and a support foot and some things like that. And so that's really where we start to push the horse a little bit rather than always just pulling on him."   Wyoming Horseman Bill Oliver.