A Black Eye for Bridle-less Riding

I recently learned about a piece of equipment being used to 'train' horses to stop harder, and I wanted to share this information with all of you.  It is called a tack collar, and while it is surely being produced by many manufacturers, I found out about it through Buckaroo Leather Products.  They recently posted an article titled, "Tack Collars, gimmick or useful training Device?" , which seems to imply that they are investigating the usefulness of this device, when, in fact, they do not criticize it at all, but rather defend it (that does make it easier to sell!).  So I guess I will be critiquing it for them...



This collar is simply a leather strap resembling a breast collar that has spiked rivets on the inside.  It is worn across the horse's chest, and when the horse is asked to stop, the collar is pulled against the horse's body, and the pain from the rivets causes the horse to stop harder and faster.  The spikes come in a variety of lengths, all the way up to 1/2 inch.  The article says that they are 'soft, gentle studs' but I can clearly see in this picture that pulling them into a horse's hide, even if they have a blunt end, would cause pain, especially when the horse is running hard to do a sliding stop.

The point of using this device is so that when the rider decides to move from riding in a bridle to going bridle-less, the horse will be impressive in its stops and responsiveness.  They even show a picture of Mandy McCutcheon, the NRHA highest money earning non-pro ever, in their ad, because if she uses this, surely, it must be acceptable, right?

Since when is it necessary to use a spiked collar to get a horse to stop nicely?  A horse that is bred and built to do reining, receives patient, proper training, is physically fit and feels good, and has a rider that has good timing and body control doesn't need to dig spikes into the horse's chest to get a nice stop. Riding bridle-less used to be a novelty, meant only to show how broke a horse is - and a way to show how lightly controlled and how partnered-up the horse is.  This tack collar is the opposite of that!  Trainers like Stacy Westfall have made riding bridle-less trendy, and yet, we can no longer assume that someone who is able to ride without a bridle is doing so because they are completely in-tune with their beautifully finished horse.  I contacted Stacy to ask her what she thinks about these tack collars, and she didn't respond.  Does she use them?  I have no idea, but I would guess probably not.  It is all the people who want to be just like her, or at least maintain the guise that they are 'natural' horsemen, that are using them.

Arguably, this type of device is not much different than using spurs, but we have all seen that spurs have become so commonplace - and so overused - in reining that we don't even question them. And the result is that many reining horses are dead sided and spin their tails.  Now we have "spurs" for their chest too, so that in every direction a horse moves, it can potentially meet a hard metal poke.

The article goes out of its way to warn people that this collar should only be used by experienced riders on well-trained horses.  That is a good way for them to avoid liability, but has absolutely no teeth to it at all.  First, the purpose of this tack manufacturer is to make money, and second, how do you ask a customer to prove that they can handle a particular device?  You can't, and even if you asked, most people would say, "Of course, I am a great rider, and sure, my horse can handle this!"  But how many people, that are the type attracted to a spiked breast collar, actually have a soft hand, like that article recommends?  I would venture to say that if you truly are an experienced trainer with soft hands, what on earth would you need something like this for?

****UPDATE****
I was contacted by Mandy McCutcheon, who was pictured in the article for these collars by Buckaroo Leather Products; she stated that she did not give BLP permission to use her image, nor has she ever used this piece of equipment to train her horses.   Further, she said that the horse pictured, ARC Sparkle Surprise, is a good minded horse that went straight from the bridle to going bridle-less with just a rein.  Kudos to her for setting the record straight!!