Rethinking Bits: Horse Snaffles
Modern Bits are Harsh, But the Spanish Haquima is Better
Dec 5, 2007
Most riders know that early horsemanship did not include stirrups. That ‘convenience’ was a relatively late development in European horsemanship. Indeed, the Native Americans never did develop a taste for stirrups, and rode with their legs hanging long around the barrel of their horses.
Bitting Systems Were Brought By Moors
Nor did early riders use bits, that multitude of oddly shaped pieces of metal most modern riders believe are the essence of controlling a horse. Indeed, although bits came to the New World with the Spanish for the use of the conquistadors, they were not invented in Spain. Spanish bits, bridles and other horse furnishings came to them along with the Moors who overran Gibraltar in 711 A.D. and rapidly moved onto the Iberian Peninsula, overspreading all of Spain as far north as the Pyrenees and southern France.
BItting at Odds With Natural Horsemanship
Bits, then, were a relatively late piece of equine equipment, considering that horses had been ridden throughout antiquity. And, unfortunately, they are not the best way to operate a horse. Dale Myler, one of the developers of the Myler bitting system used by both English and western riders, notes that most bits ignore equine anatomy Myler notes that, in the horse, “the muscles go from the underside of the tongue to the hyoid bone and the hyoid leads to the temporo-mandibular joint. Muscles go from there down the side of the neck and to both shoulders. If you look at a plain snaffle, especially if it is used badly, the horse cannot manipulate his tongue to swallow. That in turn will cause him anxiety. Try it yourself. Take your finger and press down in the center of your tongue and see how long it is before you panic at not being able to swallow.”
John Chaney, a natural horsemanship trainer in McDowell, Virginia, agrees that the snaffle bit, especially badly used, is the most harsh. “The snaffle is an Anglo invention, and was designed in large part to overcome deficiencies in riding and training skills of the later immigrants to the western United States. In early Mexico and Spanish California, there was no snaffle. Horses were started in a ‘haquima,’ which we have tranaslated to Hackamore,” Chaney notes. The Hackamore works by exerting pressure on the delicate bones of the horse’s nose and across his poll, and therefore takes a more skillful hand to use it.
Methodical Training Replaces "Bitting Systems"
The Spanish trained their horses methodically, beginning when the horse was at least four or five years old and mentally mature. By contrast, most American trainers start horses in training at three, or earlier. Racehorses are usually less than two when they first race.
Intial Spanish training used a bosal, which is the noseband portion of the haquima. As training progressed, the haquima headstall was added, as were double reins so that the rider could exert pressure on noseband or headstall, as required. As the horse got used to the bosal rein, a bit was added. The bosal rein became the bit rein.
But the bit was gentle. Unlike snaffle bits, which put pressure on the tongue and/or roof of the mouth, Spanish bits were simple bars that lay across a gap in the horse’s dentition. The bit could not rise up to gouge the roof of the mouth, nor press into the horse’s tongue, making it far kinder than a snaffle bit….especially when the snaffle bits are used by inexperienced hands.
Sources:
Information based on live interviews with Dale Myler and John Chaney.
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