Fitting the Young Horse

🐴 Finding the right bit for your young horse: selecting the cheekpiece🐴

Most people will start their horse in a simple snaffle as the lines of communication are "direct" and there is no amplifying effect of leverage.

In Europe we have noticed that starting a horse in a loose ring is more popular, here in North America riders often prefer to use a fixed cheek bit such as an Eggbutt, D or a Baucher.

Baucher Snaffle

These cheekpieces have a stabilising effect and they don't move around too much in the horse's mouth. This is great for a more sensitive horse that can become anxious, confused or read too much into the rein signals.

The benefit of the loose ring snaffles would be that they "add some buttons", i.e. they are great tools for a horse that's stable in contact to begin or perhaps can even become a bit heavy with and/or a rider with skilled hands.

Loose Ring Snaffle

So at the end of the day the choice comes down to the rider's hand, horse preferences and some trial and error.

We certainly see that most of our sales for young horses in particular skew towards Baucher and Eggbutt cheekpieces as horses seem to appreciate the stability but there are definitely horses and riders that are well equipped to go in a loose ring snaffle from the get go.

Eggbutt Snaffle

What about the mouthpiece? That's a bit more complicated and horse dependent.

🐴Bit Selection for the Young Horse: Finding the Right Mouthpiece🐴

Finding the right mouthpiece is more art than science, although there are principles you should abide by. Ideally you would trial a few options before settling on one, but generally speaking we find that it's worth figuring out:

1) what bit the horse's mouth can realistically accommodate

2) individual preferences

Let us explain. When starting out you would want to work with the thickest (gentlest) bit you can. However, a lot of horses, particularly those with a lot of blood have mouths that simply can't take up a thicker bit and a bit that takes up too much space can be very uncomfortable for the horse and lead to all sorts of resistance.

Likewise, there is often the tendency to put a thinner bit for a bigger horse, perhaps, because there is the thought that a larger horse (e.g. a draft) has a less sensitive mouth. While this may or may not be true, we often find that these are precisely the horses that can accommodate a larger mouthpiece.

As for individual preferences, one needs to figure out which style of a mouthpiece the horse is most amicable towards - tongue relief, double broken or a single broken.

Single broken offers the most stability but we find that some horses dislike them likely because the pressure is not as evenly distributed as with a double broken and the link can sometimes put pressure on the palate when reins are engaged.

Single Broken Baucher Snaffle

Tongue relief bits are often fantastic for horses with sensitive tongues, low palates and smaller interdental spaces (it's our narrowest mouthpiece). And they are for some reason particularly well liked among thoroughbreds.

Tongue Relief Baucher Snaffle

Finally double broken bits are perhaps the type of mouthpiece that most horses get started in. Our recommendation would be to simply be considerate of the design - try to make the lozenge as smooth as possible for a horse starting out. Whether to include a roller or not is also a consideration, particularly for horses that may be a bit less responsive to the reins and the bit.

Double Broken Baucher Snaffle With Copper Roller

Fitting the Young Horse

Read more