Fitting The Correct Bit
(Original article: Fitting the correct bit by Izak Hofmeyr )
Fitting the correct bit to a particular horse, has always been a passion of Bomber Nel's and through the course of some 38 years, he has developed a technique of bitting horses, which has also led him to develop his own bits. This resulted in the development of a bit manufacturing operation in Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal, which exports in excess of a thousand bits per month to Europe and Australia.
"I believe that there are very, very few real bit makers left in the world. To be a bit maker, you have to have horse knowledge first. This differentiates a bit maker from a bit manufacturer. A bit maker understands how bits work in the mouth together with the pressure points on the head and the effect of these with regard to the rider's ability, and the individual sensitivity of each horse.
Balance in the head
"When I started off, I collected as many horse skeletons as I could and studied them as well as I could. I realised that there are breed--specific differences in the mouths, and understanding that took me a step further. Another important aspect that people often don't understand, is that, unlike animals such as dogs, cats or even cheetahs, where the balance is in the tail, with horses the balance is in the head.
"So, the head is a crucial aspect of riding. As we all know, the first line of command is your seat, then your legs and lastly the hands. A lot of people unfortunately resort to the hand first, and then too much as well. So, if I know that this rider is inclined to resort to the hands too much, I can protect the horse and make a bit that will compensate slightly for this."
Bomber is always available to talk to riders on the phone, and he says the success rate of bit choices made over the phone, is over 80%.
"My philosophy is that pressure leads to -resistance, and resistance leads to lack of control. So, to get control, you must remove the resistance and the only way to remove the resistance, is to remove the pressure. If you cannot remove the pressure, you have to distribute the pressure over a bigger surface area.
"I would say that over 85% of horses work well with pressure. But there is a small percentage of horses that do not cope well with pressure and 90% of the pressure is on the tongue.
Nose in the air
"So, to get back to the principle that the horse's balance is in the head, there are very specific tell-tale signs that I use in diagnosing the specific problem a horse may have with his bit. The first is when the horse sticks his nose up in the air the moment the reins are taken up. I interpret this as the horse telling you that it is experiencing pain in its mouth. Compare that to your own reaction in the dentist's chair if the dentist touches a sensitive tooth your head goes back.
"So, the horse pulls its head up, which indicates that it is not happy with the snaffle. What I do then, is select a three-piece bit such as a control bit with a plate set at 45 degrees. Most horses hold their heads at 45 degrees, so the plate at that angle will lie flat on the tongue and distribute the pressure evenly over a bigger surface area."
No, no, no!
"A second signal is that the horse shakes its head, which means that he does not want tongue pressure. There are horses that eventually resort to running through the bit. They only do it to get away from pressure or pain. The problem is that the majority of bits work on tongue pressure and that people go for stronger and stronger bits, which only perpetuate the problem. I would rather first try to go softer and for this very reason, I have designed a bit called the 'Happy Tongue', which takes the pressure right off the tongue."
The third tell-tale sign, says Bomber, is a horse bringing its chin right up to its chest in an effort to evade the bit. This, he says, is a sure sign of too much bit for the horse, the horse is trying to relieve the pressure by bringing in the head. Either ride on a looser rein, or you have too strong a bit, is his advice.
The fourth sign is a horse that pokes his nose forward, trying to pull the reins out of the rider's hands in an effort to relieve the pressure of the bit: "These are the sings that give me a clue as to what exactly a specific horse is battling with. These signs provide me with enough information to identify what kind of bit a specific horse needs."
Once you have established what is going on inside the horse's mouth, says Bomber, you then have to establish which cheek piece would be suitable. Here you are dictated to by various things, such as the type of discipline the rider is participating in, or the skills level of the rider.
Measure the mouth
Measuring the horse's mouth, says Bomber, is a crucial aspect of fitting the correct bit. For this he has a very simple piece of advice: "Just take a straight bar, even a feather duster handle, put it in the horse's mouth and lift it to the correct place in the mouth, and mark the bar on both sides just outside the lip crease.
"This measurement is enough for me to establish the size of bit your horse needs. I will allow for clearance in prescribing the correct width of bit for your horse."
Measuring the size of a fixed bar bit is -different from a snaffle bit or a three-piece bit, especially due to the curve he puts in his snaffle bits' mouth pieces.
Curving
"If you study the skeleton of a head, it is quite clear that, if you want the bit to lie across the tongue and onto the bars, the snaffle has to have a curve. The link in the jointed bar is also set in such a way that when the snaffle lies in the mouth, the link forms a smooth line on the underside, with no part sticking out into the tongue.
"I relate the position of the link in the snaffle, to having a stone in your shoe. The moment you take the stone out, you have -instant relief."
The happy mouth
The first sign he looks for in a happily bitted horse, says Bomber, is salivation. A horse must have a wet mouth. This is one of the reasons why he uses sweet iron on the mouth pieces of his bits. He does not believe, he says, that a horse can have too wet a mouth.
The second thing to look for is adequate clearance on both sides of the mouth. In the case of a pelham or fulmer, this should be around 2,5 mm on each side, while with a snaffle bit it should be around 5 mm.
"If you measure the bit properly, you will see that the majority of people use bits that are too tight in the horse's mouth, which just adds one more pressure point. And if you add up all the different pressure points, you just get more resistance."
Phone-fitting
Bomber's advice on bit-fitting over the phone is based on a few prerequisites. First, the horse should have had a -qualified equine dentist look at its mouth recently.
"The second prerequisite is that the horse's back and neck should have been checked by a qualified person. No amount of bit-fitting will help if the pain or discomfort lies in the mouth or in the neck and back.
"All I need to know is what the horse is doing with the bit in the mouth. Generally I ask what the head does and, based on the answers, I will be able to establish what mouthpiece and cheek pieces your horse needs."
Mostly, he says, it is a matter of horses being over-bitted. "I have a strict exchange policy, for I want to make sure that every customer is happy. So if one type of bit does not work, I will happily exchange it for another, until horse and rider are happy."
