Recently, I arrived at a client's place to find she had purchased a new bridle for her horse and attached a small-diameter curved mouthpiece fixed-ring snaffle bit to it, replacing the medium-mouth egg-butt the horse had been using for a quite some time. As a former bridle and halter maker, I found the new bridle to be a beautiful and well-designed piece. But when asked "why the change of bit", she indicated she had "recently read that a large-diameter snaffle was actually more harsh than a smaller diameter one". OMG! "Gimme a break"!
I don't blame the client - she's just trying different things to make her horse as comfortable, and still responsive, as she possibly can. What irks me is the (usually self-proclaimed) "experts" who publish their rubbish as authoritative "research", which has a strong tendency to be nothing more than a personal opinion. In that context, I guess I'm no different, but I like to think my history of engineering coupled with horse training bears a bit (no pun intended) of credence.
I leave the debate about bit versus bit-less to another discussion - this is about bits, so I cut immediately to the root-issue: any bit, indeed every bit, in the wrong hands can be a torture device. I've seen horses in what I consider horror-devices go comfortably and very well, because their rider had light sensitive hands; I've seen horses in the gentlest bits be excruciatingly traumatized because the rider's hands were harsh and cruel. The rider's hands are the ultimate determinate of whether any bit is harsh or gentle.
That said, there are some general guidelines about the mechanical characteristics of a bit and the relative harshness it will impart: mechanics that poke the upper palate, bind the jaw, press the tongue, etc., could all be considered more "harsh" than mechanics that don't do these things. But it's a little more subtle and complicated than that... to wit, what is the configuration of your horse's jaw? What does your horse respond to? How experienced are your hands? Do you direct rein or neck rein? What is your horse comfortable with (they'll tell you with gaping mouth, nose tossing, over-reaction, etc.)?
All these things must be considered, and possibly tried, when choosing a bit. There are so many bit designs available today that virtually any particular problem with comfort and/or responsiveness can be addressed. It may take a lot of trial and error - purchasing bit-after-bit to find the right one, but consider these:
- a given amount of pressure focused on a small area will feel intense. Distribute that over a broader area, and the perception of uncomfortable pressure is lessened. Translation: a large diameter mouth-piece is perceived with less harshness. Try it yourself: apply pressure with a single finger to something hard - say your shin-bone - it doesn't feel very good; do the same with two fingers, and it's nothing more than a "push".
- a hollow-mouth is much lighter than a solid piece of steel. Translation: a lighter chunk of steel is much easier to carry than a heavier piece of steel - duh.
-a loose ring bit can be chewed and played with (by the horse's tongue) without changing its action. Translation: the bit feels free and "alive" to both your horse's mouth and your hands. If lip-pinching is truly a problem (the usual and questionable criticism of the loose ring), the bit either is too narrow for your horse's mouth, or can be solved with rubber "lip protectors". To me, all fixed-ring types, especially egg-butts, feel heavy and dead, but then, I communicate through the reins just with flicks of my ring fingers.
-if you perceive that a snaffle bit imparts too much palate-poking and/or nutcracker action on the jaw, consider a double-linked snaffle such as the french-mouth (see my previous blog on this "go-to" bit).
In closing, in my opinion, whatever "expert" posited the notion that a large-diameter hollow mouth bit is more harsh than a small-diameter solid mouth is in serious need of some experiential and empirical logic. Just $.02.
