HOW TO BRIDLE A DIFFICULT HORSE 🤔

Today we're going to be talking about bridling a difficult horse. If you're struggling with bridling your horse right now, he's putting his head up too high, or he's not accepting the bit, today's video is for you. I'm going to be working with Buddy. Yes, that is his real name. I know I call a lot of my horses Buddy. Buddy's a really good boy, but he does, or he did have some difficulty bridling. So I worked with Buddy for 20 minutes, going through the steps that I'm going to take you through, and you're going to see what he's like before I worked with him, and then we're going to show you a little clip of what he was like afterwards. Okay, so see how when I go to put his bridle on, you can see that he's wanting to put his head up really high, and he's kind of wanting to avoid me putting that bit in. You know, and I can kind of work with him here, and eventually maybe I can get it in. So now I'm going to take Buddy through some steps to help him out with this, help him get to the place where he can lower his head and relax, and make it a little easier for me to put that bridle on. The first step to putting the bridle on successfully is standing in the correct position with the reins over my horse's head. So I put those reins over his head so I have some control if he goes to leave. I'm going to stand close into him in front of his shoulder, so I'm blocking him with my body. I slip his halter off, catch it with my right hand, left hand stays on the bridge of the nose for control. Then I'm going to gently rock his head back and forth, and turn his head to the side to lower it. Next, I'm going to pet over his nose, make sure that he's confident and relaxed with me doing that. Then I'm going to stick my finger in his mouth where there's no teeth, and make sure he's willing to open up his mouth for me, and he stays with his head down relaxed when I do that. Lastly, I'm going to hold my bit in the correct position so I don't accidentally hit his teeth. I'm going to feel for his teeth, stick my thumb in, gently slip the bit in, and put his ears forward. And there you have it, a nice smooth bridling. And this is after one session. I worked with him one time. This was the second time working with him on this, and you can see how he's very relaxed and very confident through this whole process, and that's our goal. As you go through these steps, every horse is going to handle this process a little bit differently. Some horses, you're going to do one session with them, and they're going to do really well and relax. Other horses, you may have to break your sessions up and take longer. So just be patient. Take your time as you go through this. Before we end today, I want to give you two more tips if you're struggling to get the bit in your horse's mouth. The first one is you can put a little bit of honey on your bit. This is a really great tip that I've used in the past with young horses. Our horses are difficult to bridle, and it's really easy to clean off. The other tip that you can use to put the bit in is you can put a treat in your palm when you go to put it in the mouth, and that can help your horse to accept the bit a little better, make it a more positive experience. So I hope this video is a help to you if you're working on bridling a difficult horse. If you like the video, give it a thumbs up. Don't forget to subscribe, and I hope I see you in the next video.