We're going to venture into what I would call my performance bits. I would keep a bit similar to this hanging up in my tack room ready for what I call the dress rehearsal. If I have a performance horse and we're getting ready to compete at a high level, it's quite likely that I'm going to start to switch that horse into what's considered your traditional kind of port style leverage bit. The port is this raised area. This one's rather high, somewhat assertive. You might consider this a very strong bit. We have sayings that even the right bit in the wrong hands can be a problem to the horse. This could be considered, perhaps, the wrong bit if it were in the wrong hands. But in the correct hands, a rider who's very accomplished, trained in the presentation of a good performance horse, this is the kind of bit that will bring you to the dress rehearsal that will ultimately take you to the stage. I use this when I'm training a horse, trying to convert from the snaffles and the shank snaffles to move on to what we would also use then when we get to that more highly polished, fancy, silver sort of bit that we would use that has the same mechanism as my training bit. But I reserve this, polish it up, keep it to the side for when we go to the shows. A bit like this might be seen in all kinds of disciplines, particularly on horses that are over five years old. Under five years old, we consider them junior horses and they can perform at all levels to the highest degree in their snaffle bits, typically your loose ring D rings. But once they get to be of the senior or aged horses, they must show and perform in a curb or leverage bit. So we typically go to something like this that creates a very assertive, easy to perform, putting them in that collected, what we call hooked in the bridle appearance. I wouldn't want to use this in training. It would take away the sensitivity over time. But in used in a performance horse, this is going to put enough pressure to the roof of their mouth that with very little hand movement, this bit is going to put them right where I need them without any hand movement on my part.
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