Favorite bit is a Myler french link loose ring snaffle. No hooks, roller thingies, just an incredibly flexible, kind bit with a curved mouthpiece that is not thick.
Also, a D ring with same mouth.
Have found these to provide a wonderful soft and subtle connecting with my horses over the years. Both very sensitive and responsive, one a reformed TB rooter, the other an Appy/Belgian drafty chestnut mare…very opinionated!
Also ok with Sprenger 14mm loose ring.
Hate thick bits!
Bits, Bits, Bits
I am a bit collector…I have a bucket full of them. I think there are different bits for every horse and not every horse goes their best in a just a snaffle.
My quarter horse has two favorites- 1st is her twisted snaffle, she’s light and happy and more responsive in it than in anything else. We’ve tried the whole gambit of bits from snaffles to segundas to broken mouth pieces to mullen mouth pieces and the twisted just makes her quiet and responsive with very light pressure. And her other favorite when we hack around at home is a hackamore, she is very light and “stretchy” in the hackamore and works great long and low and loose in it.
My 3 yr old gypsy- his favorite bit is a full cheek happy mouth. He is quiet and lazy and easy going and was just lightly broke so it’s been a soft bit for a youngster and helps him steer.
My 6 yr old gypsy- his favorite bit is a D-ring myler comfort snaffle. He has two modes of work- one is with his owner (my mother in law) who rides him on a more loose rein and less of a frame and is a beginner learning rider and his other work mode is working more collected in a frame with me when we school.
My older Tb mare goes mostly in a short shank English hackamore. If she absolutely needs to have a bit in her mouth, she uses a Happy Mouth mullen with D ring. It is a touch too wide for her, but we make due. My younger mare is an OTTB and we are still playing with bits. The first bit I tried on her was a single jointed D ring that I had from when my older horse was first started. She really seemed to hate it, so I switched her to the mullen mouth. She seemed to like it, but I didn’t have much in the way of brakes. I purchased a Happy Mouth double jointed D ring, a loose ring hollow mouth oval double jointed, and a loose ring French link. I tried the French link a few times, but she was pretty fussy about her head with it. So I have been going back and forth between the Happy mouth double jointed and the hollow mouth oval joint bit. I tend to use the happy mouth for trail riding because I feel I have better brakes with it, and use the other for ring work.
I have a fascination with bits and have a fair collection of my own. At home, my horses all go in a plain snaffle or loose ring. But my jumper’s show bits evolved over the years. I started in a full cheek corkscrew, when his steering and whoaing skills were practically non existent. Then we played around with it for a while with a slow twist, and then a three ring, and eventually landed on a slow twist gag with two reins. It gave me the perfect amount of leverage and whoa. Ideally it would have been a full cheek for a little extra steering help but all I had was an eggbutt. He then had to play equitation and hunter mount and went in a jointed tom thumb pelham and segunda for those jobs. And then when he went back to the jumpers I used a plain full cheek gag with two reins. This was a progression over 5 years from a 5yr old to 10yr old. I should also mention that my jumper was a big cold german horse and I was (am) a 5’2" junior (girl). I was a little bit over-horsed in the beginning :lol:.
I think the rider’s hands and the rider overall play a large factor in bitting. My trainer showed my jumper in different bits then I did, especially in the beginning.
interesting Thread. We ride all our horses, jumpers and dressage horses in this bit http://www.doversaddlery.com/hs-kk-ultra-ur-21mm-loose-rng/p/X1-01356/
And if I ride a new horses I prefer to ride it in that bit too because then I can evaluate the horse better because I know how it should feel. Never had a horse so far who I couldn’t handle with that bit… I even switched my polo horse (used to a Gag) to it:). Although I guess while playing Polo I will still use the Gag
That is my go-to bit, too, Manni. My young horse (my eventual A/O jumper, hopefully) goes in it- he came with a very polite mouth but he can get heavy in front. Proper dressage work and fitness to improve his ability to carry himself is fixing that, so I’m hoping I can keep him in it as we go up the levels. I don’t even ride him with a martingale (my trainer is an eventer and uses only runnings on very few horses), so we are pretty lowkey.
I have no problems with people trying and using different bits and rigs and such- it’s not my horse, I don’t know what it is like to ride. I rode my old jumper in everything from a German hackamore to a slow-twist balding gag to a long shank pelham and everything in between. We ended up in the loosering French link, but it was a long, hard slog to get him educated enough to de-bit him. He was never a very good citizen, but it was nice to be able to take off all of the extra stuff and have him not be a total jerk and ignore my aids.
When I first started riding my guy he went very nicely in a twisted copper snaffle. I started having problems with his feed driving him nuts, I didn’t realize it was the feed that was doing it at the time, he become harder to ride b/c of the feed issue and I was young at the time. I went to one trainer that put him in a kimberwick and that worked fine until we straightened out the feed problem. It eventually became too much bit so a friend of mine at a local tack store helped me find a less strong bit. She suggested a Dr. Bristol Eggbutt Full Cheek. That was the best he ever went for me in the 8 years I owned him. I had control over him and he was very happy with it. He went in that until the day he passed away.
I ride my mare mostly in the HS kk ultra loose ring and she seems to be ok with it. I also tried her in a full cheek French link because turning does not always happen however she seems more fussy with that one.
As a side note, when people are talking about stability, what does that mean? What does it do for the horse? What are pros/cons?
Some horses need the whole bit to be more stable in their mouth- to move around less, from side to side, etc. A full cheek can help with that, for example. Some horses need the mouth itself to have less moving parts- so a mullen mouth or a nathe. Looserings are less stable than dees because the rings aren’t fixed to the mouth piece, and so a loosering French link, for example, has a much more flexible/movable mouth AND side pieces than a dee snaffle.
Young horses often like the movable mouth, but sometimes they need more stability, especially when they are developing steering. One of the most stable bit configurations I’ve ridden in is a mullen mouth long shank pelham. It gives the horse something solid and fixed to move forward into, but it is a lot of bit for most horses because of the shanks, which exert pressure on the poll when the curb rein is used.
HS KK Ultra Sprenger as well here.
Have tried multiple bits to no avail with the world’s most anxious piebald; this is the only one he consistently accepts and relaxes enough to achieve any sort of carriage.
Pricy but worth the money.
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