What if you could take a beautiful English bridle and savvy it up? That’s exactly what Linda Parelli did. As you may or may not know, Linda is passionate about dressage and jumping, and since meeting Pat in 1989, she has been focused on revisiting the sport and bringing to it the savvy she’s learned from Pat about creating true partnerships with our horses. The right equipment is a key part of that.
So, how would a bridle do that? Here’s Linda, to tell you in her own words:
"First of all, I love the look of an English Bridle, noseband and all. What I don’t like is strapping the horse’s mouth tightly shut (it’s against the FEI rules, anyway!). There are only so many ways a horse can express his pleasure or displeasure with our ‘feel', and opening his mouth is one of them. That’s why I wanted to have a noseband that would fit snugly, but not restrict the horse’s mouth – so I put elastic in there! And I called it a FLEXI, because there is a lot of elastic and just one, simple buckle. Now I’ve got the look I want and my horses have the comfort they need. They can even chew and graze in it.
“I also love a bit of bling on the browbands – I’ve collected about 12 over the last couple of years, but I never change them out, because it’s too hard! It’s such an ordeal to unbuckle all those buckles, and fiddle and re-buckle again. So they all sit in the box, unused. In designing this bridle, I thought about putting a snap on the browbands so I could change them as often as I wanted or felt like. A girl cannot have enough bling… we get bored with the same look, day in and day out! With the snap-on browbands, I can easily change to whatever I feel like!â€
WHAT’S GREAT ABOUT THIS BRIDLE
Beautiful Italian leather
Snap on, quick-change leather browbands with bling
Padded crown
Ear-contoured design
Buckles on each side to ensure symmetrical adjustments
Elastic inserts in the noseband (allowing for comfort and stretch while minimizing restriction)
Slip & Grip Reins (featuring fine grain material on the inner surface, improving your grip as needed, while also allowing for smooth releases)
Note: Bit not included