Bits

I'm sitting here, sipping my latte (I am a still PNW girl at heart!), thinking about bits.

Flyin' Horse posted a great question to the Equine Mind Meld yesterday morning. 

Her basic question was about bits/bitting/why you would use a bigger bit.  She wanted to know why, if a horse can be ridden fine in a snaffle, you would ever "move up" to a curb.

I hemmed and hawed about submitting an answer.  As I said before, I'm always hesitant to jump right in with my opinion, even if it is based in a lot of research and scientific fact.  I guess I feel like, as I've also said before, there are always a lot of answers that could be correct.  In the end I didn't write anything.

But, basically (have you ever noticed when someone says "basically", they're about to launch into a long explanation that isn't basic at all?)--the goal is to move from less subtlety (bigger aids, less education) to more subtlety (smaller aids, more education).

Education, of course, refers to both the horse and rider.

I was really happy to see that in her post response today, Mugwump quoted Sustainable Dressage.

Particularly this great article I've mentioned before on The Bridle & the Bit.

Chev was started for her first 30 days under saddle in a basic sidepull.

The trainer wanted to stay completely out of her mouth at the time.  She wanted to just get Chev going.  Step one was just teaching her to move under saddle with a rider, and that's what she learned.  Her first 10 days were spent entirely out of her mouth, learning to walk, trot, and stop.  There wasn't a whole lot of steering involved.

After 10 days or so, she was moved into a basic smooth mouth broken snaffle on an O-ring (loose ring).  She learned to steer and move different parts of her body: shoulders, hips, ribcage.

She was off to a good start.

What do I ride her in now?

A basic smooth mouth broken snaffle on an O-ring.

She is still an uneducated horse, so she rides in the snaffle.  Even 4 years later.

I've found one she really likes.  The mouthpiece is medium-thick with a nice curve to it.  The rings are loose and fairly heavy.  It hangs low in her mouth--she's learned to carry the bit along instead of having the bridle hold it up for her.

I was always taught that horses should have two wrinkles at the corners of their mouth if the bit is adjusted properly.  Being the snot I am, I wondered, "Why?" 

For Chev, this was too high.  She couldn't relax.  I think bit placement has a lot to do with individual personality and mouth conformation.  And, at some point I wanted my horse to take some responsibility for the communication piece in her mouth.  By lowering the bit, it was an offering of respect.  Sure, she could evade it more easily.  A naughty horse would have gone straight to the "tongue-over-the-bit" trick (although I suspect they have their reasons).  But in my mind, it was giving her an opportunity to use the bit freely for communication too.

It was the difference between asking and telling.  And it did make a big difference in her behavior under saddle, and accepting the bit as something useful instead of something that was merely to be tolerated.

Lowering the bit a hole or two on each side allowed it to be a passive instrument instead of a constantly active one.

But, I'm getting way off track again.

Chev in her snaffle.  The noseband is just there for style--it's not tight enough to prevent her opening her mouth to play with the bit.

My horse rides in a snaffle because she is an uneducated horse.   I'm comfortable with people looking at her and thinking, "She is not in a curb.  She's not a finished horse."  Because that's exactly right--she isn't a finished horse.

Horses riding in bits beyond their means is a little bit like cars with tons of emblems all over and nothing under the hood.

I am a car aficionado.  I'll admit it, I love cars.  I first fell head over heels with a little Alfa Romeo Spyder when I was a senior in highschool.  My parents, wisely, did not let me buy the car.  But it started a love affair that continues today, resulting in the kind of insanity that compelled me to drag my '91 BMW e30 halfway across the country behind a U-Haul to a state where it is completely impractical to have--simply because I couldn't part with it.  We just rolled over 21,000 miles together the other day on the way back from the barn.

There are few things that annoy me more than pretending something is more awesome than it is.  I'd much rather have the sleeper car that looks like a piece of crap on the outside but has a twin turbo under the hood.

CRX...why, why, WHY??

Get what I'm saying?

I feel like riding a horse in a big impressive bit, whether it be the double-bridle, reining curb, or twisted dog bone "snaffle" barrel bit (which is not a snaffle at all!), when the horse obviously has no education, is just terrible.

Those bits were designed with a ton of pre-signal in mind, in the sense that they are meant to be "subtle" bits.  The barrel bit is almost never used that way.

I talked about this whole issue a little in my post on Feel.

You don't cram a young, uneducated horse into the double bridle or a curb bit without running into a whole bunch of problems.

That's because these bits all require EDUCATION and FINESSE to be used properly.  And that means education of the horse AND rider.

They were never meant to be used as forceful submission objects. 

They were never meant to be used as crude emergency brakes.

They were meant to increase transmission of signal between horse and rider.

So there you have it: the reason we "move up" in bits as the horse's training progresses.

Snaffle bits don't transmit cues with much pre-signal all by themselves.  Well, of course they don't.  All pre-signal comes from the rider.  But a snaffle doesn't amplify any of this signal the way a signal bit (like the ultimate in all signal bits, the vaquero spade bit) does.

Example:  The halt in the snaffle.

You have lots of opportunities to tell the horse what you want without yanking on the reins.  Or even touching them for that matter.

I sit deep and back first.  This shift of weight should tell Chev something is up.

Then I say "Hhhho."  

Then if I don't get anything, I pick up the reins.  She just about always stops at this point.

If she doesn't feel like listening, then I put some pressure on the reins--just enough to get a response.

This is all well and good if you're riding two-handed in an arena with no obstacles.  If you're ranch roping and riding one-handed, ever more subtle and correct cues are needed, so as the horse moves up through training levels, his education becomes more refined and so does the type of hardware he wears.

This is true for the Dressage horse, the reining horse, and the vaquero cowhorse.

And it's a pretty incredible process.

The problem is, you CAN fake results with a lot of hardware and gadgets--to a point.  It's not a good solution, but bits are used as forceful control devices.  I'm sure that's why we see so many horses riding in 5" shanks when they barely know how to turn or stop.

Holding the neck back with sheer force causes tremendous pressure on the nuchal ligament.  The horse breaks at the second vertebrae producing "false collection".  Image courtesy of Theresa Sandin at Sustainable Dressage

One of my pet peeves is draw reins.  What on earth are they supposed to accomplish?  I've seen them used extensively as they seem to be especially beloved in Western Pleasure training for "schooling a low headset".  What it really seems to teach the horse is to dump on the forehand and hollow out the back.

A horse in drawreins, breaking over hard at the 3rd vertebrae to escape the pressure.  Image courtesy of Theresa Sandin at Sustainable Dressage

I'll have to do an entry soon on various gadgets, because it seems like there are as many gadgets out there as there are problems people have with horses.

We're going on 4 years in the snaffle, and I'm pretty happy with where we are.  Her cues are becoming more refined, and her responses faster and more light.

For us the next step isn't the curb though.  It's the traditional hackamore.