Horse Bits Are an Essential Component of Training

An equine specialist with the University of Arkansas says that bits play only one part of a properly planned horse training program.

The role of horse bits in managing horses is often misunderstood by people outside of the horse industry.

Steve Jones, extension equine specialist and associate professor with the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, says that bits play only one part of a properly planned horse training program.

"Effective horse training programs rely heavily on communicating with horses using motions and behaviors that the horses have been taught to understand," Jones says.

During training, the horse is taught the meaning of certain signals, or aids, used by the rider. According to Jones, there are both natural and artificial types of aids. Natural aids include voice, seat, legs and hands. Artificial aids include the whip, spur and martingale.

"Using your hands, you can send aids through the reins and the bit to the horse’s mouth" he says. "This allows you to exert pressure on various parts of the horse’s head."

The seven pressure points of the horse’s head include: the tongue, the bars of the mouth, the lips, the curb groove, the poll, the nose and the roof of the mouth. The horse responds to different areas of applied pressure to determine its rider’s objectives.

Jones stresses that the No. 1 factor in determining bit severity is how the rider uses his or her hands. A good horseman with light hands can turn the most severe bit into an effective communication device. An unskilled horseman with poor hands can make a mild bit seem like an instrument of torture.

Before putting any device into a horse’s mouth, it’s important to assess its contact area, which is the size of the area that touches the horse to transmit pressure. Thinner bits have smaller contact areas and can exert greater amount of pressure. Thicker bits have greater contact areas and lower pounds of pressure.

"Another important factor to notice about the bit is its shape," says Jones.

A straight bit causes the horse’s tongue to absorb some of the pressure so that the horse feels less pressure on the bars. Hinged or grooved bits relieve pressure on the tongue and apply more pressure on the bars of the mouth, providing the horse with more directional guidance.

Jones notes that a third factor, leverage, also determines bit severity. Leverage can be measured by comparing the ratio of two distances - the distance from the mouthpiece to the place where the reins attach and the distance from the mouthpiece to the curb strap.

When a curb bit has a standard 3:1 leverage ratio, a rider putting 10 pounds of pull on the reins will cause the horse to feel 30 pounds of pressure squeezing its mouth. Because the horse feels this pressure immediately, it’s important that the rider reward desired behavior by softening the applied pressure.

Jones says that there are three kinds of horse bits: snaffle, curb and hackamores.

"The snaffle bit acts only with direct pressure," says Jones. It "allows the rider to gain lateral (side to side) control of the horse."

Curb bits are designed to provide vertical control, as opposed to the lateral control obtained from the snaffle bits. Curb bits are intended to help set the horse’s head in the desired position, and are used with neck reining in western disciplines. In high-level English disciplines, the curb bit is used in conjunction with a snaffle.

Hackamores are essentially halters. A hackamore made from plaited rawhide or leather is called a bosal. The bosal operates on pressure points on the bridge of the nose and allows riders to manage how the horse sets his head.

"The bit is only component of equally essential navigational aids used by riders to communicate desired behaviors to their horses," Jones says. He recommended that bits be applied so that severity is reduced as much as possible; this will ensure that the horses are able to understand other important aids being communicated by their riders.