How Horse Bits & Bridles Work

Series Summary

Man has enjoyed a unique relationship with the horses on this planet for many years. Horses have carried us into battle, brave and without fear. They’ve helped us travel over long stretches of terrain. In some parts of the world they still pull our farmer’s plows and carry our loads. They’ve been indispensable in herding and driving our cattle. And the police have mounted horse patrols for crowd control situations in urban environments. No question, horses have proven to be well-suited for human life, expressing qualities of loyalty and bravery, responding to commands, and usually having a calm, docile demeanor. In this free video series our expert horse trainer will teach you all about horse bits and bridles. Horse bits are used on the horses head and mouth to control the horse using slight pressure. You will learn about a variety of bits and bridles including a bit-less bridle, O-ring bit, D-ring bit and a simple snaffle bit. You will also learn about horse bits like the shank snaffle bit, combination bit and elevator bit. If you own or ride horses, learning about different bits and bridles is essential for safe, comfortable riding for you and your horse.

Video Transcript

"We're going to embark on my favorite topic, truly is, bits and bridling. There are many books that recognize and go through each and every type at great length, and we're going to take some time, to examine a little bit about each type of bit and bridle, but what we want to also look at, is do we understand the mechanism that each bit works with. We know we've been learning about, how horses move away from pressure. We want to think about the inside of the mouth, and what that concept describes. When we start thinking about the horse's mouth, we want to think about the upper palate, the bars, the corners of the cheeks, all those things. Most importantly, we look at how does that pressure impact the roof of their mouth, or the palate. As we go through these bits, we'll be able to see and determine just how it is, that when we apply the pressure at the reins, it's not just here at the corners of the mouth. It's actually at the roof, the palate, where that bit is going to create some kind of a pressure, where the horse can choose to either raise his head to get away from it, which would be the non desirable outcome, or they can submit and come back in a way, that brings that bit to hang loosely in their mouth, in a very comfortable way. We'll look at bits with ports, that have the same mechanism. It's just a more solid kind of a configuration, but these bits have been scientifically studied, and researched. Some of them can be more than five, six hundred dollars, based on the type of metal, and the technology involved, and we all, all trainers pride themselves on having a very long array of different options to choose from, so we're going to try to go through and sort that out, and look at some of the basic varieties, and talk about how the mechanism differs from one to the other."