What was Bill Dorrance's view on the progression from snaffle to bridle horse?

Bill Dorrance's view of the progression from snaffle to bridle horse reflected the vaquero tradition's understanding of horse development as a multi-year journey of increasing refinement rather than a training timeline to be completed as efficiently as possible. In this tradition, the snaffle phase was not merely a starting phase to be passed through quickly but the period during which the foundational qualities of softness, responsiveness, and feel were developed to genuine depth — and Bill was clear that the progression to the next equipment stage should be triggered only by the horse's genuine readiness rather than by age, time in training, or the trainer's desire to advance. The progression from snaffle to hackamore represented a significant shift in communication — from the direct rein action of the snaffle to the nose and chin pressure of the hackamore — that required the horse to have developed sufficient understanding of following a feel through the reins that it could translate that understanding to a different physical application. The two-rein stage, in which the horse was ridden with both the hackamore and the bridle simultaneously, was designed as a transitional phase that allowed the horse to develop its understanding of the spade bit's communication while still having the familiar hackamore as a reference point. The fully finished bridle horse — working in the spade bit with the reins draped across the hand rather than gripped, responding to the weight of the reins rather than direct physical pressure — represented years of patient development and the highest expression of what the vaquero tradition considered genuine horsemanship. Bill's insistence that this progression not be rushed, that the quality of the work at each stage determined the quality of what followed, was one of his most consistent teaching points.