Undesired Effects from the Bit

Disharmony caused by unfitting, harshly used bit.

Many horses have mouth problems which are totally unnecessary and caused by humans and their ways of controlling the horse. Just as much trouble is associated with having a bit in the mouth, as with having a rider on the back. Just like the back looks like it was made to accomodate the saddle and rider, the mouth looks just like it was made to accomodate the bit. If possible, the horse is even less tolerant of having someone pull the lower jaw back than carrying a weight on his back. The back spine supports the viscera and its weight every day, and the muscles used for it, are the same muscles that have to be engaged to carry a rider well. But in nature, nothing ever pulls the jaw back. Nothing ever spans across the tongue or limits the movements of the neck. So that is completely and utterly unnatural.

The bitting thus has great impact on the horse, just like the riders weight. But what has the biggest impact on the horse is how the reins are used. The reins influence the bit''''s pressure on the tongue, its position in the mouth and its movements. So a bit is not inherently "bad" hanging on the wall of your tack room, it is how it is used that matters. As you can read in any instruction manual for riding, the bit, and especially the curb, is like a razor in the hands of a monkey when it comes to unskilled riders. And with unskilled riders I don''''t just mean green riders. I mean all those riders who do not understand what "On the Bit in Balance" means. What it really means.

As usual there are two categories of poor use of bitting, just as with everything else in riding. You can do wrong out of ignorance, or you can do wrong in a premeditated attempt to manipulate the horse into something it does not want to do. You can pull the horse in the mouth because you have poor balance - you balance yourself on the reins as if they were a rail. Some are totally unaware that they do and can thus do nothing about it. That''''s sad. Some are just unable to balance themselves properly and are painfully aware of it. This is at least the first step towards doing something about it. So it''''s not so sad.

The saddest is when the rider could balance himself independently of the reins, but choose not to because they need the counter-weight of their upper bodies to erect the horses neck to get that spectacular frontleg movement. To do something that one knows causes pain and a faulty balance plus broken gaits - in order to win points in competition or simply to get the "Ooohs!" and "Aaahs!" from onlookers. Now that''''s sad.

The same distinction (of ignorance vs. premeditation) can be made in the choices of bits that riders make. A lot of riders choose a single jointed snaffle, that is too thick and is too wide (long) for their particular horse. This because they have heard that it is the kindest bit. Of course they would not describe it as "too thick" or "too wide" because they think that it is well fitted (or they wouldn''''t have bought it) and soft. Because their fellow riders tell them it is or because they have read it. And well yes, as a horse, choosing between pulling a green rider along in the field (cavalry training) with a thick snaffle or a thin one, I''''d also choose the former. And I would also prefer to be ridden in a loose-ring snaffle that is too wide, at least does not pinch the lips bloody as might a too narrow bit.

But let''''s rise above the "lesser of two evils" train of thought. The lesser of the two evils is still pretty evil, you see. The scenario above is extremely common. It is the norm. And it causes what you see at most barns - horses with their mouths open, crossing the jaws, and then being shut with a crank noseband or a flash extension. The thick mouthpiece pushes the tongue down and the tongue pushes it up into the palate. The thick butts open the lips so that air slips in as the horse tries to suck the bit. The single joint creates an upside down V in the mouth and the sharp end hits the palate as soon as the slack is taken out of the reins. And since the two jointed mouthpieces are too long, they are pulled way out of the corners of the mouth, causing more of a nut-cracker effect than necessary. The horse''''s lips are propped up under the noseband which at the very least looks disharmonious, and can also cause bruises and ulcers.

The horse gets used to the discomfort in the mouth and becomes insensitive, and the rider has to pull and jerk the reins. And the horse grows more insensitive and more resistant. The heavy contact and harsh aids cause heavy traction on the lower jaw. This is something the lower jaw IS NOT MADE FOR! The joint at the temple is strained and painful, not to mention the muscular tension and cramp this causes.

The remedy would be to leave the bit altogether for a while to get the jaw joint back on track. Use a hackamore, sidepull, cavesson, halter whatever. Maybe let off work for a while. Then find a fairly narrow, double jointed eggbutt bit which conforms to the mouth and needs to be no wider than that it fits perfectly from corner of lip to corner of lip when held straight through the mouth out to the sides with the rings. Fit the bit lower in the mouth so that no wrinkles appear at the corners of the mouth. Then use webbed reins and no gloves. When your hands hurt, you know the horse''''s mouth hurts too.

Ride with a release of the tension of the reins as a default so that your fingers are comfortable. Teach your horse to respond to the aids by releasing the tension in the rein as a reward. Never hold the head and neck into position, if the horse cannot hold his neck and head up without tension in the reins, he needs permission to have it lower, because he''''s not really coping with the stronger contact either.

Riders usually fit the bit too high up in the mouth against the teeth, which just really help the horse to hang on to it and lean on it. The teeth feel no direct pain. Sometimes this is a good thing, especially if the ignorant rider rides with too heavy contact. The horse can avoid some of the pain in this way. If this rider just lowers the bit 2 holes, the horse will instead try to pull the tongue up and over the bit to avoid pain. This is the background for the myth that horses learn to pull the tongue up if the bit is fitted too low. They don''''t. They learn that by being ridden into too strong contact.

Here dressage riders ought to look at western pleasure riders for a while. Although some WP riders overdo it and ride their horses off the bit and head low in a stupor, yet some of them know how to make a horse relax, stretch and be light. And they have the bit low in the mouth on the middle of the bars with no wrinkles on the corners of the lips. No chafing or ulcers. Pleasure.

A study of the dissected bodies of dead race horses, in Great Briatin I believe, showed that a high percentage of them had bony changes to their jaws. Bone spurs, like those forming in joints suffering from inflamatory arthritis, covered the bars of the lower jaw. Some horses had a grove across the bar near the lower first molar, where bone had withered away from the pressure of the bit. Imagine the agonizing pain these horses must have felt as their bars were injured by the strong pressure of the bit. They were probably too excited to feel it while racing or training, but the inflamation afterwards. And the renewed pain of getting that bit into the mouth again with the bars still sore and inflamed from the day before.

Loose-ring, Egg-butt, Full-cheek, Dropped-cheek...

There are all kinds of different ways to join the bit rings to the mouth piece on snaffle bits. Most of the differences make little difference to the horse, but some change bit function, and some are better for sensitive horses, or specific problems related to green horses. Let''''s start with the norm, and move on to more specialized designs.

The loose-ring snaffle is the norm. This is a simple bit that is simple to make, and works for most horses. One of the down-sides is that the ring slides through the hole at the end of the mouth piece, and could potentially pinch the horse in the lip. Another problem is that there is a space between the ring and the walls of the hole, so the metal parts can rattle some. I personally know a mare that hated all things that clicked and rattled. So for her we had to move on to...

The egg-butt snaffle. In this snaffle the mouth piece is jointed to the rings by a wide tunnel in the butt of the mouth piece. The ring is thinned where it goes through the tunnel, and the mouth piece is rounded and smoothely contoured against the ring angle. There is no room for rattle here, and also no room for a lip to get pinched. The only downer is the price, which is usually higher due to the higher production costs.

The D-ring is really just a further development from the egg-butt, but with specific positive functions. The prolonged joint between mouth piece and ring gives the rings a flat side against the face of the horse. In a young horse, which can lean on the bit or be a tad difficult to steer around sometimes, the flat sides pull the entire head in the direction of the rein aid, much like a hook or an anchor. This is the traditional bit for starting thoroughbred racehorses. This is softher than a rounded ring that can be half-way pulled into the mouth from the rein on the opposite side.

But the best bit for this kind of problem is the full-cheek, or Fulmer bit, with its extended straight sides. There is always an inherent danger, though, in using a bit with pointing things. In order not to get tangled up in the bridle parts or reins, the upper sticking-out things are jointed to the side pieces as well with small leather loops. These also keep the bit from rotating in the horse''''s mouth and gives is a fore fixed position. This can sound complicated, but it is really not. This kind of bit together with a drop noseband is generally the gentlest way to start a green horse.

Another bit with this function is the drop-cheek or baucher/fillis bit. This bit can look deceptively like a gag-bit but it is not, since the mouth piece cannot slide on the bitring, which is a prerequisite for gag action. In this bit, the fastening of the bridle side piece is done further up the side of the head. This makes the bit lie flatter to the side of the head, because anything other than would have to fight the "lever" of the arm where the side piece joins. This effectively stops the bit from being pulled into the mouth from the side as well. And horses usually like this kind of bit.

This bit is usually falsley described as creating poll pressure. Most baucher bits don''''t. In order for it to put pressure on the poll, the ring which the rein attaches to, needs to have a drawn-out oblong shape so that the rein stays at a certain position on the ring. If the ring is oblong, the rein will want to stay at one end, and thus pulls this end up towards the hand/rein. If the ring is round, so that the distance from the mouth bars to the rein is constant at all angles, the rein will slide.

It is also sometimes erroneously depicted upside down while called "hanging/dropped cheek". This use might be possible, but it really only turns into a strange jointed pelham without the lever effect. Just a rotating mouthpiece. It surely was not meant for this...

And speaking of "like"... I usually don''''t put a lot of personal aesthetic judgement into which equipment to use, and I''''m not one for big name brands, but Sprenger have really succeeded in making a beautiful drop-cheek bit in their B-ring snaffle. But $120+ for a snaffle? Nah.