Anyone have any tips for finding 4.5" curbs? My new horse has fat lips, and takes a very normal 5.5" snaffle. He also has a very narrow lower jaw bone. I tried a 5" on curb on him, and it has way more side to side movement than it should. I’ve found plenty of 4.75" options (and have one NS on the way to try), but only one Sprenger in 4.5" (and I doubt that style will work). Can anyone point me in the ring direction?
I bought a titanium 115mm (around 4 1/2", it fit the horse who measured 4 1/2" for the curb) Weymouth curb from Fager bits (https://www.fagerbits.com.) I got the Victoria which has a Mullen mouth.
Fager bits have 2 types of ported curbs, the Elisabeth and the Sophia, which are also made with titanium and they also come in 115mm. I had never seen the port orientation these two bits have and I have not ridden with them so I have no idea how they work.
Both horses I’ve tried the Fager Victoria Weymouth Mullen mouth curb have not had any problems with this curb bit. The first one I tried it on I had used a 4 1/2 stainless steel ported curb on, he switched with absolutely no problems. The second horse seems like he had never had a curb bit in his mouth before, and again I had no problems. Neither horse had ever been ridden in a double bridle before I introduced the double to them.
These are riding school horses, QH geldings, one in his mid-late 20s the other one a late teen.
If you decide to get a Fager bit I recommend e-mailing Louise Fagerson first (there is a contact button on the site), she has some interesting ideas about the relationship between the width of the curb and bradoon. I tried her ideas with the second horse and had no problems. Louise wrote me that she found out that there are many horses, that when the curb is narrower than the bradoon, who have difficulties with the narrower Weymouth curb interfering with the bradoon. I tried the second horse with a 135mm Weymouth and a 130mm bradoon and I had no problems, and this horse has a “short smile” and a 5" mouth at the corners of his mouth.
I was going to try a wider Weymouth on the 4 1/2" mouth horse, but he had a bad attack of moon-blindness before I could try it out and got removed from the riding horse rotation.
Around a year ago I had success finding stainless steel ported Weymouth curbs on E-bay of all sizes, from 3 1/2" on up to 6". I did have to be persistent, checking everyday, but I finally ended up with a full set up to 5". I stopped there because I have no wish to ever ride a draft horse again!
Good luck in finding the perfect bit for your horse.
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I want to say NS makes a 4.5, but it has been a while and I’m not sure where my catalog is.
Definitely check out Schneider’s saddlery and perhaps The Collected Pony as well.
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Check the collected pony! I get all my 4.5 bits from there and if there is something I need that she doesn’t have, she is usually able to find it for me.
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https://thecollectedpony.com/collections/bits
Quite a few here. Even if you don’t buy, you know they come in that size and can check elsewhere.
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Awesome! Thanks everyone!
I found that HS bits were just too thick, even in the smaller sizes. Had better luck with neue schule.
I have a NS mullen mouth Weymouth curb.
It’s mouthpiece is thicker than the Fager Victoria Weymouth curb.
It is also a bit heavier than the Fager curb.
The Fager mouthpiece is not perfectly round. It is slightly flattened. On the Fager site Louise says that with the mouthpiece slightly flattened like this that it is easier for the horse to “seal” its lips around the mouthpiece.
I am debating whether I need to keep the NS Weymouth. Yes, mine is around 4 3/4" wide and I would have to special order a Fager curb of that size, and wait for months to get it, but NS curb bit is so much heavier than the Fager curb bit partially because of the thicker mouthpiece. Because of all this I have not even tried it on a horse yet since the horses seem quite “pleased” with the Fager curb bit.
Louise at Fager bits writes that her Weymouth curb bits are designed so that they do not bear down on the horses’ bars, which can often cause injuries to the bars. That is why her Mullen mouths are arched vertically on the tongue, and this is the reason for her more forward leaning “ports” on the Sophia and Elisabeth Weymouth curbs. These more vertical-to-the-tongue ports press down more forward on the tongue when the rider uses the rein, which sort of reduces any pressure on the bars instead of the action of the normal ported curb bits where engaging the rein causes the bit’s mouthpiece to descend down onto the horse’s bars.
When I rode both of these riding school horses with just keeping contact with the curb rein the horses did not act at all like me keeping contact with the curb bothered their mouths. It felt different than keeping contact with a normal ported Weymouth curb bit as the horses felt more relaxed about it all.
