Well, doesn’t match the title of the thread but I figured posting this here would be as good as anywhere to post my thoughts. I’ve been riding my young mare in the HS D-ring Novocontact and she’s been okay in the mouth but a little fussy, which I always attributed to her being a bit behind the leg and unbalanced and not the bit. She would sometimes salivate a little but not a lot. I tried the loose ring Verbinend (absolute game-changer of a bit for my old mare) on this mare and it was like it was “too little” bit for her and too light to settle in her mouth.
Last year at Devon I wanted to pick up a NS turtle top for the same horse but the person I discussed it with at the store talked me out of it. I found one at the Dover tent sale a couple of weekends ago for a really good price and grabbed it. It’s a size large and we probably need a size small but WOW at the difference. Suddenly I have a horse willing to take the bit forward. This also coincided with a couple of other things going in our favor but my gut tells me it’s mostly the bit. I wish I had gotten it six months ago when something in the back of my mind told me to try it (oh, how many times I wish I’d listened to my gut the first time on SO many things! will I ever learn!)
The mechanics of the turtle top are odd to me. I can’t figure out the “sweet spot” like I can with the Verbinend. It almost seems like the concave part is in the wrong place and the “turtle” in the middle is small enough to create a nutcracker action, but my girl says otherwise. The most interesting thing to me is that you can’t bend it backward or down onto the tongue, so it doesn’t bend in the wrong direction even if they suck or pull on it. I don’t know if this was part of the aversion of the HS bit, but I now want to try a Myler loose ring on her (which I don’t have) and see if I can improve the contact just by adding even more stability in the mouthpiece but keeping the play in the loose rings.
