Lesson 1: Grooming and Tacking up
Choosing a bit
For your beginning horse, this should not be hard. It should be a plain snaffle bit. There are several styles of snaffle, depending on how it attaches to the bridle and the configuration of the part that lies on the horse’s tongue. Avoid a loose-ring snaffle bit; you will need protectors so the connection between bit and rings doesn’t pinch the horse’s mouth. Choose D-ring or eggbutt bits. The D-ring bit is shaped like the letter D and keeps the connection from pinching. The eggbutt is even smoother at the connections. Another choice you might make is the full-cheek snaffle. This means that there is a bar extending up from the bit’s ring along the horse’s cheek. This must be attached by little keepers to the cheekpiece on the bridle to have the intended effect. What is that effect? To give the horse a little more hand pressure indicating turns. These are usually used for green horses, but they will not harm a made horse.
The next consideration is size; for a horse, that will be either 5 or 5.5 inches. The straight parts of the bit should not hang out the corners of the horse’s mouth, but rather pretty much meet at the edge of the lips. This is not going to be exact, with only a couple of size choices. So you’ll have to use your visual skills and perhaps the advice of an experienced rider.
Also to be considered is the weight of the bit. They come in hollow-mouth, which means the bit is very round and puts relatively little pressure on the horse’s tongue. They come in medium, which works for most well-trained lesson horses. And they come in knife-edge; these are thinner and are somewhat squared off, rather than rounded, to make a bigger impression on the horse’s tongue; these are used for school horses that have a hard mouth and are a bit difficult to stop. Beginners should not use twisted wire bits, or even a ‘slow twist’ which is not as severe as a twisted wire, but still too much in the hands of a beginner. And do not use an elevator bit, same reason. Nor a pelham, which requires two sets of reins to be operated at once, one for the snaffle and one that operates the curb chain that goes under a horse’s chin. In hunt seat, the pelham is used to stop or slow down or rebalance a horse that has an excess of energy, and beginners shouldn’t be riding those horses anyway.
