bits

I like my homemade chain mouthpiece semi gag bit. Its a Frankenbit I made by chopping up two perfectly good shank bits ( actually one of them might have been broken come to think of it) and adding a chunk of small soft chain for the mouthpeice. When used as a shank bit the gag kicks in and since the upper cheek peice is so long it has quite a bit of leverage - the chain mouthpeace is difficult for the horse to pull on because its fairly big and lumpy though fairly smooth- the opposite of a tiny twisted snaffle which can make them fractious sometimes. The big difference is that the chain doesnt scare the horse as easily as other bits can.

Also if the leverage is too much for the horse to deal with you can attach the reins higher, near the mouthpeice, eliminating the leverage altogether. This works good on greener horses. They cant pull on it easily, and they respect it, without it scaring or hurting them.

Today on the four year old Humble- I had it in shank mode and the leverage was fine until it came time to change leads. It took too much of a hold on the horse and he panicked in the change- afraid of his face- he'd change, but throw in a trot step- for whatever reason -and raise up, stiffening his jaw. I havent done simple changes with him to speak of- weird. So I unsnapped the reins (snaps are good for that but bad because they break and release at the worse times) and eliminated all leverage, so it became, basically a snaffle with a chain mouth peice. After that When I asked for the change he didnt stiffen his face, or do a trot step. But he did do a nice flying lead change.