What’s Your Horse Trying to Tell You About His Bit? (Pt. 2)

08/10/21 • 36 min

In the second of our 2-part episode about bits, FEI rider/trainer and certified bitting specialist, Stephanie Brown-Beamer of http://horsebyhorse.com, and host Caroline Culbertson continue their chat from last episode (so listen to that one first!) as well as answer some listener questions.

In this portion of the episode, they discuss:

The type of mouths we’re seeing on many of today’s horses
What about tongue relief bits?
How do we properly size our bits when we’re buying them?
Demystifying the dull-mouthed horse
How to know when a bit is “as good as it gets” and to stop searching

In this portion of the episode, they discuss:

The type of mouths we’re seeing on many of today’s horses
What about tongue relief bits?
How do we properly size our bits when we’re buying them?
Demystifying the dull-mouthed horse
How to know when a bit is “as good as it gets” and to stop searching

Previous Episode

What’s Your Horse Trying to Tell You About His Bit? (Pt. 1)

Is it just us, or can finding the right bit for your horse feel like a shot in the dark?

Sure, we have a general understanding of how certain bits work, and maybe you know a little about your horse’s mouth. But for most riders, the knowledge stops there. And that’s because historically, we haven’t HAD much information about bit and bridle fitting and function the same way we now have info about saddle fit, for example.

FEI rider/trainer and certified bitting specialist, Stephanie Brown-Beamer, and host Caroline Culbertson get into the weeds of bit and bridle fit and function in this two-part episode. They discuss:

How horses tell us the bit they have isn’t working
What happens when the noseband is too tight to compensate for a bit they don’t like
Debunking the idea that “thicker is milder and thinner is harsher”
How the tongue’s function affects the horse’s entire self carriage, head to tail.

Next Episode

Addressing the Troubling Scenes During Modern Pentathlon at the Tokyo Olympics

The show jumping portion of the women's modern pentathlon at the Tokyo Olympics is making headlines - and not in a good way. It was so stressful to watch, there were many rider falls, and lots of stressed out horses who clearly didn’t understand what was expected of them.

How do we make heads and tails of this? Are there solutions? Host Caroline Culbertson is joined by Tik Maynard, Rick Maynard, and Peter Holmes - who cumulatively have decades of experience in pentathlon as athletes, coaches or course designers - for a roundtable discussion in response to this troubling display of riding.