Jessica Jahiel's HORSE-SENSE Newsletter Archives

Bit pressure and Western bits

From: Allen

Dear Jessica, I've always ridden English but I've just moved to Arizona and I'm starting to ride Western because that's pretty much all I can find around here. I'm a little disappointed because I enjoyed the finesse of English riding. I have some questions about bit pressure. I'm used to riding on light contact (hunters) and I'm having a hard time getting used to the reins always hanging loose on a Western bridle. I've heard ten different explanations from ten different people about how bits work, and I'm pretty sure that however it works, it's not supposed to look the way it does in the movies, so I'm bringing this to you. Is it true that Western horses work without any pressure from the bit? Thank you for clarifying. Allen

Hi Allen! That's a really interesting question, and the answer isn't a quick or simple one. In English riding there should be constant contact - but not constant heavy pressure. I suppose that technically there is some degree of pressure in any contact, but the sort of light, elastic contact that characterizes good English riding is not something that should make you or the horse think in terms of pressure. With a snaffle bit, which works off direct pressure, a very light feel at your end of the reins means a very light feel at the horse's end of the reins.

Western bits are much more complicated. They work by leverage, affecting not only the bars and tongue but also the chin groove, poll, and sometimes the roof of the horse's mouth as well. How these bits work depends on many things, including their design; Western bits vary widely as to shape, weight, and balance. The horse DOES work off pressure in the mouth - but the pressure isn't caused by fingers moving at the end of a lightly-stretched rein, as it would in English riding. In Western riding, as in English riding the movement of the bit in the horse's mouth tells the well-trained horse what the rider wants. The difference is that in Western riding, the bit can be moved at the end of a loopy rein, just by the rider's moving his/her rein hand. The mouthpiece of the bit moves in various ways to create pressure. It may move up, down, forward, back - or in some combination of the above directions. Some bits, through their weight and design, have a strong effect on a horse's head carriage, since the horse must position its head in a certain way to avoid putting bit pressure on the roof of its mouth (for example).

Some Western bits, because of their design, weight, and balance, put no active pressure on the horse's mouth until the rider lifts or drops his rein hand, or takes the rein hand to one side or the other. Other bits, especially the ones with long swept-back shanks, put some pressure on the horse's mouth at all times - even when both reins are hanging loose.

Many Western horses are trained to stay behind the bit at all times, and trying to convince a good Western horse to go up to the bit and seek direct contact with the rider's hand would be silly, and uncomfortable as well as confusing for the horse.

I think that the most important thing for you to remember right now is that good Western riding, like good English riding, puts legs and seat and balance first, and reins and bit last. Your horse should go, stop, and turn because of what you tell it with your body, not your hand. At the very least, it should do all of those things without anything more than the merest whisper from the reins.

You're right about the movies. Western movies have a lot to answer for! That's where so many riders got the (totally wrong) impression that Western riding means yanking the reins up and down, right and left, and that horses should always throw their heads straight up in the air and open their mouths when the rider asks for a turn or a stop. All of that is completely wrong. It's bad riding and it's utterly brutal. Forget the Western movies, and rent a couple of videotapes of the National Reining Championships instead. Look at how much a horse and rider can do - including spins, gallops and sliding stops - with no pulling from the rider and no tension in the neck, crossing of the jaw, or opening of the mouth from the horse. It's especially impressive when you consider that the horses wear no nosebands - there would be no way to hide a strong pull or a wide-open mouth.

If you like finesse, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the options available to you in Western riding. A good reining horse-and-rider combination epitomize finesse. And keep your eyes open for exhibitions of vaquero-style work - look for a "doma vaquera" competition. If you ever have the chance to see a genuine bridle horse in action, GO - and bring something you can use to prop up your jaw. You'll need it. It takes an incredibly sophisticated, well-educated horse to carry a spade bit, and it takes an incredibly balanced, well-educated rider with a delicate, sensitive hand on the reins to ride that horse.

Jessica

Materials from Jessica Jahiel's HORSE-SENSE, The Newsletter of Holistic Horsemanship® may be distributed and copied for personal, non-commercial use provided that all authorship and copyright information, including this notice, is retained. Materials may not be republished in any form without express permission of the author.

Jessica Jahiel's HORSE-SENSE is a free, subscriber-supported electronic Q&A email newsletter which deals with all aspects of horses, their management, riding, and training. For more information, please visit www.horse-sense.org

Please visit Jessica Jahiel: Holistic Horsemanship® [www.jessicajahiel.com] for more information on Jessica Jahiel's clinics, video lessons, phone consultations, books, articles, columns, and expert witness and litigation consultant services.