A widget of some kind connecting the crossunder straps under the horse's chin is somehow "better."

The two cross-under straps of The Bitless Bridle are intentionally designed to move freely and independently of each other. Whatever the particular conformation of a horse's jaw, each strap falls naturally where it should and without the built in tension that results if they are locked together.  Being themselves relaxed, they exert minimal stress to the skin they lie on and mold themselves comfortably to the contours of the jaw. As they are free to move, they can automatically adjust to any movements of the jaw and to the constant flux of rein pressure. For these reasons, it is a principle of the design that the cross-under straps should not be united and 'stabilized.'


Rubber gripping on the noseband provides more "contact."

More "contact" is not necessarily a good thing - one could gain even more "contact" by resorting to increasingly draconian measures.  A mechanical hackamore provides so much "contact" that it is capable of breaking a horse's nose!  Our noseband is designed to provide excellent control while avoiding pain and discomfort, thus our nosebands are smooth on the inside.  We don't want the noseband to pull the hair and grip the skin at the bridge of the nose.  The noseband should be able to move slightly to adjust to varying rein tension without causing discomfort to the horse.

Other bitless bridles use an undivided crownpiece.

This statement refers to an older design of our synthetic bridles.  On our leather bridles, the crown piece has always been undivided and it was only on the synthetic bridles that the crown piece was divided.  We changed this a while ago on our synthetic bridles as well and all our bridles now have undivided crown pieces.


Connecting the reins closer to the horse's mouth makes the bridle action feel more like a bit to the horse and rider.

Regardless of whether the reins are attached two inches away or five inches away from the noseband, the "feel " of the bridle remains the same - any tension on the reins would originate first at the rings on the noseband, not at the point of connection between the reins and the cross-under strap.  Our cross-under straps are fully adjustable, so you can attach the reins as close or far from the mouth as you wish, although we recommend adjusting them to allow a minimum of three inches between the connection point of the reins and the ring on the noseband (to avoid entanglement).  But even so, we think making a bitless bridle feel more like a bit defeats the purpose of going bitless in the first place.


For more information about why Dr. Cook has patented The BitlessBridle, please refer to the article "Inspiration, Perspiration and Imitation."