Select the proper bit while retaining your sanity

By Marty Metzger
North Forty News

The topic of bits elicits confusion, contention and conquest for horse owners.

If not terminally baffled by the myriad of choices, or obstinately biased to a particular type, they're raising the white flag of defeat: "I'll just take a snaffle, please." But, why always order a hamburger at a four-star restaurant simply because the menu's so long?

Well, the menu can be overwhelming. After all, there are English and Western headings. Subheadings include curbs and ports, Weymouths, bradoons, dee rings, rollers, full cheeks, eggbutts, pelhams, Kimberwicks, loose rings, hollow mouths, French mouths, gags, jointed rubber, ported barrel dees, double bridles, dressage bits of many types and on and on.

After the appetizer and main course selections, care for dessert? Menu offerings include curb chains, gag cheeks, lip straps, bit guards and burrs, drop nosebands. And back to the main course: bit made of copper, steel, aluminum, nickel, rubber, alloy? And, if alloy, what percentages of what metals?

Back to basics.

Unless a horse goes best in a hackamore, bosal or bitless bridle, the primary considerations in bit selection are riding discipline, behavioral issues and mouth anomalies.

Exceptions aside, a Western bit brings out the best performance in a Western horse. Hunter/jumpers, dressage or saddle seat horses go best in their discipline's bits. Each was designed to elicit certain head/neck carriages and aid in overall way of going.

Behavioral issues might require retraining or temporary correction with a particular bit. Only good, respected trainers should experiment with corrective bits. Any bit connected to reins held by rough or inexperienced hands quickly becomes a torture device that exacerbates trouble.

Mouth anomalies are often naughty phantoms. Jen Wright, manager of Happy Horse Tack & Saddle Shop, recalled once owning a 3-year-old Quarter Horse filly that, for three weeks of her otherwise smooth training, had been acting like a "boob." An equine dentist finally discovered a huge, loose molar. Tooth removed, boobish behavior resolved. Wright said now she always first explores faulty oral possibilities when bit problems arise.

Wright said bit material and design are similarly important. Copper mouths, once all the rage, are soft and easily nicked with sharp chew marks. Likewise, aluminum. Good options are copper rollers on other metal.

German Silver, an excellent material, can be had in alloys of 30- to 90-percent copper. One such blend, for example, is a 65-percent copper/12-percent nickel/23-percent zinc alloy.

Aurigan bits, when genuine and patented, are solely manufactured by Herm Sprenger. These bits produce a pleasant taste due to rapid oxidation of their 85-percent copper/4-percent silicon/11-percent zinc alloy content. Most horses happily chew them and salivate, thereby leading to soft mouths and bit acceptance.

Another popular metal is sweet-iron, which tarnishes and rusts, but is highly palatable to horses.

Avoid chrome-plated mouthpieces because they flake off and become sharp.

Aluminum, as previously mentioned, isn't good in the mouth but does great as shanks due to its light weight.

The most requested bridle at Happy Horse is the Rambo Micklem Multibridle. This marvel is a three-in-one device. It can be used bitless (two alternatives); with its bit, which first exerts pressure on the noseband before on the mouth; as a lunge cavesson.

Wright fits all bits by allowing just a single little wrinkle in the lip and a pinky's width on each side of the bit.

In Western bits, some features to consider are height of port on curbs; length/angle of shanks; types of snaffles (twisted, ported, reining); spades; Tom Thumbs; roller mouth bits.

Sans bits altogether, hackamores and bosals also offer options. Nosebands come as leather, flat leather, rubber, fleece-lined, braided, laced and more. Cheeks vary in length and shape. Bosals are usually rawhide, latigo or nylon, although there are some beautiful examples of braided/plaited horsehair.

By working with a trainer or good tack shop, the bit mystique becomes manageable. Ultimately, only two individuals can determine a bit's or bitless bridle's suitability: your horse and you. The correct choice will make equine and human better and more content partners.