--- In bitlessbridle@yahoogroups.com, "Katie Grillaert"
<katie.grillaert@...> wrote:
>
> Does anyone here train for dressage and eventing in a bitless?
>

Hi Katie,

Yeah, I train for eventing. There's a couple of pics in the photo
section under "Kev_Deb" folder.

The bay in the photo's is my horse Angel. He's an ex race horse and
had terrible feet...the worst feet I've ever seen...so my wife bought
him! Anyhow, after a couple of years of sorting feet (I'm a certified
Barefoot practitioner)and basic training I took him to his first baby
show at the end of last season.

At this point I should explain that I'm British and reside and work in
Saudi Arabia. Our local horse competitions are pretty low standard
and hardly FEI. Having said that, the advantage here is they don't
enforce the biting rules so I can compete in dressage bitless.

It's summer here and very hot and humid so we are not actively
training at the moment. Our competition season runs Oct to March.
When the weather breaks, I'm going to start some serious show jumping
training with Angel and also increase his exposure to cross country.
This coming season I'm going to compete him in our Pre-Novice events,
dressage is BHS preliminary, show jumps are about 2'9" max, cross
country is about the same fence heights and is about 3km longs.

Between us my wife and I, we have 6 horses in total, all are bitless
and barefoot and four out of the six are treeless. Lazzaz is an old
and very honest kids pony, Nayef is an ex show jumper who we rescued
due to lameness problems and now is an excellent hack, Fetra, my wifes
primary horse, does very nice dressage and is presently being trained
in laterals. She has a nice shoulder in and is starting to develop
her traver. Buffy is a green mare and just coming under saddle this
season after a season of ground work basics. Flint, my second horse,
and my greatest challenge, can move beautifully but has had problems
of nervousness, which I've been addressing with lots of ground work
and he has been improving. I might compete him this season in
dressage if I judge he is calm enough. And, lastly there's Angel.

If you've got any specific questions please feel free to ask.

Cheers, Kev