Category Archives: Bits

Fitting a Full Cheek Snaffle

Posted by Liz Goldsmith in Bits, Commentary, Snaffle bit and tagged with ,
Full Cheek Snaffle

The Full Cheek snaffle features long cheek pieces.

The full cheek snaffle is one of my “go to” bits — I’ve used it on almost all my horses and currently it’s my non-hunting bit for Freedom. For a moment, let’s forget about the mouthpiece and focus on the function of the cheek pieces.

Full cheek snaffles are direct action bits like all snaffles. They have cheek pieces that extend above and below the bit. These serve a couple of purposes:

  • They keep the bit from sliding through the horse’s mouth (a problem that can occur with a loose ring snaffle). By not allowing the mouthpiece to slide back and forth across the tongue and bars it reduces friction.
  • They add lateral pressure to the side of the horse’s head, which can help make the turning aids clearer to a green horse.
  • When used with keepers, the bit stays very quiet in the horse’s mouth, which some horses prefer.

Are keepers necessary?

Full Cheek Snaffle with keepers

Here's a full cheek snaffle with keepers. You can see that by attaching the top cheek piece to the bridle, the bit is stabilized in the horse's mouth.

When I was growing up you never, ever saw a full cheek snaffle without keepers.

As mentioned before, the keepers stabilize the bit in the horse’s mouth. People also use them because they help prevent the cheek pieces from catching on objects (that’s one of the objections that people have to this bit — if a horse rubs up against something it’s easy for the bit to get caught).

More recently I’ve seen Full Cheeks used without the keepers. My first assumption was that it was from ignorance or laziness (and it might well be the case). However, the keepers change how the mouthpiece is positioned in the horse’s mouth. Take a look at the images below and you can clearly see the difference.

Some horses prefer the bit in one position versus the other. Of course, how it works in your horse’s mouth also depends on what type of mouthpiece you use. The bit below has a quarter moon mouthpiece, as opposed to the bit at the top of the page, which has a French Link mouthpiece (but more about them in another post).

Full cheeck snaffle with keepers stays upright

With keepers the bit stays upright in the horse's mouth which keeps the mouthpiece in a fixed position.

Full cheek snaffle without keepers

Without keepers you can see that the mouthpiece falls into a very different position. Some horses like this better. It's not as stable and it will act differently on the bars and tongue.

Full Cheek Snaffles are NOT Leverage Bits

One misconception that I’ve read about the Full Cheek snaffle is that by adding the keepers pressure on the rein will apply pressure to the poll. Nice idea, but it’s not true.

For a bit to apply poll pressure you need to have a curb chain to balance out the action of the shanks. While it looks like a Full Cheek has shanks, the reins are attached to the ring, and the pressure from pulling on it is direct. To have leverage, the rein would need to be attached below the mouthpiece and you would need a curb strap.

Perhaps it works because people think they have poll pressure?

 

Warming up your bit in winter makes for a happy horse

Posted by Liz Goldsmith in Bitless bridle, Bits, Commentary and tagged with , , ,

You can use a commercial product to warm up a bit or go the DIY route for free or nearly free.

Putting an icy cold bit in a horse’s mouth is unkind and uncomfortable. I loved riding Kroni bitless in the winter because it was never a problem. Freedom, however, tends to ignore most bitless solutions, so it’s not really an option.

What are some of the tricks to warming up a bit? It depends on whether you are a DIYer or you want to spend some cash.

First, the free, or nearly free, solutions

  • If you already have an electric kettle, put some water on when you get to the barn. Depending on the design you can either put the bit in the kettle or pour some water over it (use the rest for beet pulp and make your horse a warm snack!)
  • Plug in a heating pad and wrap your bit in it while you groom.
  • Blast it with hot air from a hair dryer.
  • Hang the bridle around your neck with the bit zipped inside your coat.
  • Buy  disposable heat backs and wrap your bit up with that (they actually make a handy holding case, called a Bitten Warmer that buckles around the bit). You can use the heat packs to warm up your hands later! I buy these at Costco for not too much $$.
  • Fill an old sock with rice, tie off the end and stick it in the microwave (either at the barn or, if you live close by, before you leave). The rice-filled sock will drape nicely over the bit.
  • Hold it in your hand and blow on it. It does work but leaves your fingers chilled.

If you want to get a bit more fancy (or need a winter gift for a horse-riding friend), here are some commercial products.

Or, you can always go bitless. Problem solved!

Tell me, what do you cold weather riders do to warm your horse’s bit?

Yes, these are all snaffles

Posted by Liz Goldsmith in Bits, Commentary, Snaffle bit and tagged with , , , ,

This double jointed loose ring snaffle is the kind of snaffle that people think of when they describe a mild bit.

Most people think that snaffles are the mildest bits. for example, you see horses advertised with a “snaffle mouth.” The implication is that these horses have sensitive mouths and don’t require a lot of bit to control them.

In truth, a snaffle is any bit with a solid or jointed mouthpiece that has no leverage; the reins attach directly to the the mouthpiece and the pressure and signal from the rider’s hands is direct.

If you compete in dressage, you are limited to the mildest forms of snaffle bits; show hunters almost all show in a snaffle (because it makes the horse look easy to ride, but anything can be inside the horse’s mouth.

But it isn’t always mild. Take a look at some of these. Twisted wire, segunda, waterford . . . these mouthpieces all have varying degrees of severity and there are plenty more like them. Snaffles apply pressure to the lips, bars of the mouth and, most of all the tongue.

Twisted wire snaffle.

Waterford snaffle.

Segunda snaffle.

How many joints?

This may age me, but when I started riding, most snaffles had a single joint, like the one below. In fact, I’ve owned this particular bit for at least 20 years, maybe longer.

The potential problem with the single jointed design is that when pressure is applied by the reins, the bit essentially folds up in the horse’s mouth. Some horses, especially those with a low palate, find this uncomfortable. The double jointed designs that were introduced some years back are designed to make the bit drape over the horse’s tongue. You can see the difference  between the two types of bits below.

However, just because the double jointed bit looks like it will be more comfortable, not every horse has read the manual. Freedom hates double jointed bits but is happy as a clam in my old single jointed snaffle. Go figure!

Bits and the anatomy of a horse’s mouth

Posted by Liz Goldsmith in Bits, Commentary, equestrian and tagged with , ,

Many people choose a bit because

  1. It’s already in their tack box
  2. Everyone else at the barn rides in one
  3. The bit doesn’t matter — it’s the rider’s hands that matter, or
  4. The horse was ridden in the bit forever, so why change?

Hey, those are the criteria I used for selecting bits for years. My first couple of horses were easy: I rode them in either a loose ring single jointed snaffle or a full cheek snaffle (generally with a single joint).  It took a horse with who had a strong opinion about bitting (Kroni) to make me think about the anatomy of a horse’s mouth — and why some horses do better in a certain type of bit over another. And another horse who has more get up and go than whoa (Freedom) to make me start to think about the need for control and lightness.

I’ve written plenty in this blog about riding bitless — ultimately, that proved to be the best solution for Kroni — but I’m not against bits. They offer the most direct form of communication and that communication can be very subtle. With a horse like Freedom, riding bitless, at least in the hunt field, simply isn’t an option. I suppose that I could use a hackamore, but those exert a tremendous amount of pressure on the horse’s very sensitive nose. I needed to find a bit that could still catch his attention during the adrenalin rush of galloping in the hunt field but which wasn’t so severe that he would curl up behind the bit and not accept contact.

Let’s start with the way that bits work in a horse’s mouth:

This diagram shows the anatomy of a horse's mouth. The areas where a bit can exert pressure include the tongue, the corners of the mouth, the "bars", teeth, palate and chin groove. Which bit you choose depends on how your horse responds to the pressure.

When selecting a bit you need to take into consideration the anatomy of that horse’s mouth. Kroni had a thick tongue and a low palate. This made many bits, especially single jointed bits, uncomfortable for him. He did far better in a mullen mouth bit (no joint) that wasn’t too thick. While thicker bits are generally considered to be milder (in theory they disperse the area over which the horse feels the pressure of the bit) and thin bits to be severe, for him, the thicker bits just didn’t fit well in his mouth and the joint (especially the single joint) was hitting him in the roof of his mouth. Ouch! He seemed more comfortable in double jointed bit designs but even those made him very fussy.

I’ll look more specifically at some of these bits in future posts.

More resources on bits and the anatomy of the horse’s mouth.

Radiographic study of bit position within the horse’s oral cavity, J. Manfredi, HM Clayton and D. Rosenstein, Michigan State University.

Bit by Bit, the Whys and Hows of Bit Science, Emily Esterson