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Three Piece Bits 
The differences matter 

OK - so in preparing this article, I went down the rabbit hole.  I found like a g'zillion 3 piece bits.  Not all 3-piece bits are created equally.  Back in the day, there was a Dr. Bristol and a French link.  Now - yikes!  And the names aren't even consistent.

To spill the beans, my favorite bit is a loose ring 3-piece Dewsbury link.  I'm not sure these are available anymore.   There's a lot of things out there saying they are Dewsbury links, but they don't look quite right.  Here's what one looks like:


 

The reason I like this bit is that it sits very softly on the tongue.  To figure out how that feels, hold the bit in the palm of your hand with rings perpendicular to your palm.   In this pic, where the pink line is, that's the tongue.  Put your palm there and let the bit rest on your palm.  You will feel how smooth it is.  It 'disappears' to the touch.  When you see it from above, you can see that the rings that hold the sausage run parallel to the tongue and do not sit on the tongue at all.

 

Here's some other bits I found.  The top ones might be ok.  The bottom ones are going to dig into the tongue where the red arrows are.  Some of this is by virtue of the bar and some of it is by virtue of the middle piece.  (Some of the bottom bits are pretty pricey, too, but I personally wouldn't use them.)

 

 

 

The new horse came with this bit:

It's a lovely bit.  Except if you look at how it sits on the tongue, there are 2 hot spots. 

The bridle it came with had a crank nose band.  (boo hiss anyway.)  Taking into consideration that this bit digs into the tongue and she was being ridden with her mouth cranked shut, is there any wonder problems developed?  Basically, every time she was being ridden she was being hurt, even if the reins weren't being 'taken up' and she was on a loose rein.  It was up to the trainer involved to have side stepped this.

What the trainer was responsible to have known is that (a) nosebands are superfluous and (b) an immobile jaw is a immobile horse. 

Have you ever noticed that western horses behave quite well without a nose band?  So, is there an reason English ridden horses couldn't behave quite well without them?  They were originally meant to prevent cavalry dudes from breaking their horses' jaws -- ie reinforce the bone w/ some leather.  We aren't hauling on our horses like that anymore.  Or shouldn't be!  My opinion is that they are not necessary in today's world. 

On a more technical note, when the jaw is unable to move, the entire skeletal system is inhibited from movement.  Inhibiting movement is the opposite of what we're wanting in horses.  This is one of those things were it doesn't seem like it should make that big of a difference, but it actually makes a bit of a mess of things.  Please avoid this!

When you go to pick out your next pick, feel it in the palm of your hand and notice if it disappears or not.  It matters.

Copyright © 06/08/2016 Lynn S. Larson
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