“What kind of bit do you recommend?” Now there’s a question. I guess my real answer is “The bit that’s attached to a pair of educated hands.”

Since the early 1900s, we as a society have gradually moved away from horse transportation towards vehicles powered by the infernal combustion engine.  These cars, in spite of the TV ads, don’t think. Horses do.

The action of a bit in a horse’s mouth depends on a conditioned reflex that must be taught. It’s kind of like learning ballroom dancing. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers appeared to blend into a single unified being when they were whirling across the floor. A horse and its rider do best when they “dance” together the same way. And they learn to do that by working through a learning process. The rider develops a “feel” for the horse’s mouth and the horse learns to respond softly to signals coming down the reins from the rider’s hands.

In my own experience, the main difference in bits is how they feel, How the horse responds to my signals through the reins, and at the same time through my seat bones and my legs. It’s all a concert of “feel”. The best explanations I have ever been exposed to are the works of a Frenchman named François Baucher, and several of the twentieth century “horse whisperers” like Tom Dorrance and Ray Hunt, along with Germans, like Egon Von  Neindorf , and Reiner Klimke and finally the Portuguese Nuno Oliveira. Some of these guys were primarily snaffle bit men, some double bridle,spade bit, and  some were even hackamore men.

The essence of all their training is for the rider to develop trust in the horse’s mouth, teaching the horse to give with the jaw instead of resisting. This is the jaw flexion, the essence of lightness. It is not the same as poll flexion. Its hallmark is the sound of the bit being moved softly by the tongue and then by the horse swallowing.  When a jaw flexion happens, no matter what kind of bit is in the horse’s mouth, the horse’s mouth goes light in your hand, the horse relaxes, and gives smooth, enthusiastic, willing movement. This is the feeling I wanted to find for many years. No one bit or bridle gave it to me. Time in the saddle and study of the methods of these masters and my teachers has started me on the path to lightness.

My family is a musical family. As long as I can remember, even back to early childhood, there’s always been music in the household. When camping out, we sang around the campfire. My folks played records (that’s right, big old heavy RCA vinyls) on Sundays, and we listened to Verdi, Mozart, Beethoven and Strauss. We went to dances: waltz, two step, polka. We sang folk songs in college, usually outside on the steps of hundred-year-old buildings. We sang in English, French, German, and Spanish. Now we have entered new territory. As we have become increasingly infatuated with the Lusitano horse (Portuguese bullfighting and dressage breed) we are also learning about Portuguese and Brazilian music. Years ago it was Samba. Now we are into Fado ( FA-du). It is an ancient song category reflecting the Portuguese involvement with the sea, sailors, seagulls, distance, love and loss. All this is wrapped up in the word Saudade ( sau-daj), which is like nostalgia blended with love, beauty and yearning. Many singers have excelled in singing Fado, but currently our shining star is Dulce Pontes. She writes it, she sings it, she is brilliant and has an angelic voice that must cover four octaves. Her enthusiasm in songs like Cancao do Mar, Lágrimas and O Laurindinha!, make our hearts beat a little faster and turn up the corners of our mouths.  Dulce Pontes celebrates life with each note!

“Not all is as it appears.”

It’s been called the “aspirin of equitation”. Those who chase dressage honors talk about it like it’s just an everyday chore. Cow-horse trainers talk of two trackin’. In any event it is the lateral movement used in horse training that develops permeability, elasticity, and collection in the horse’s body. This is because in a good shoulders-in at the walk, the horse learns to reach up under the mass of his body and bear weight on his inside hind leg, bending the joints of that leg, then pushing off. The crouching movement required for for high school or for cow work comes from this movement. It is how the horse is induced to shift his weight and balance to his hind legs.

One day a friend asked about shoulders-in while I was starting to work with a client’s horse. The first question was “How do you keep him from banging his inside foreleg into his outside shin when crossing over as he steps?” I began the explanation by saying that the movement requires a certain amount of bend and a certain amount of angle off the wall. The bend comes from the rider’s seat bone pressing down on the inside of the horse’s back. (“Inside” refers to the center of the arena. “Outside” refers to the wall or rail side of the horse.) The angle comes from the reins bringing the shoulders inward off the track, outside rein predominant, inside rein only enough to help with the bend.

Then my friend asked “Well, how is it that you sit to the inside?  I thought you told me years ago that because the horse can’t actually bend its backbone in the middle, it rolls its spine to the outside. That ought to make you sit to the outside!” I rocked back on my heels. It was quiet for a while. Then an epiphany came to me.(It didn’t hurt!) I have so often had difficulty sitting into my right seat bone when attempting the right shoulder is in. I feel like I’m falling off the horse’s right side. Then it hit me. That’s because most horses have more resistance to bending to the right. Only when they develop the flexibility to roll the spine to the left, do they give you a “place for your right seat bone to sit”. How much easier all this would be if only we could converse with them! As it is, we patiently repeat the exercise  until it starts to feel right, then quit for the day. We can always ask again tomorrow.

An old friend happened by last week. We were in the Air Force together 43 years ago. We reminisced about those days and our lives since. He’s retired now; he and his wife were on a tour of Texas. Later it hit me that it was nearly Veterans Day. We used to call it Armistice Day. Our small town had a parade with marching band, majorettes prancing, twirling batons in glittering costumes and white boots. The bass drum made my tummy thump. It was all heroes and bravery, and the flag. In 1972 I was drafted into the Air Force. We were at war in Vietnam. As a flight surgeon I flew in combat aircraft that cost the taxpayer six million dollars apiece. I learned about military chain of command and mission. My squadron was made up of smart, educated, technologically sharp young men with quick wits and gallows humor. They’d seen combat and flown missions with names like Wild Weasel,  fast FAC, Owl FAC and some were members of the Gulf of Tonkin Swim Club.We strafed and bombed New Mexico, me banging my helmet on the plexiglass canopy as we rolled in on a target. My G-suit grabbed my legs and bladder as I breathed stinky oxygen through a neoprene mask and listened to crisply structured conversation in my rubber earphones. Often I heard terms like “augered-in”, ”dinged in”, “barrier engagement” and “foamed runway”. These were glibly tossed off over coffee and cigarettes. These were Warriors.

 After the “Roll-back” in 1974 I never again inhaled JP-4 in the morning, or watched the sun rise as I sat hands-up at the arm/de-arm station. I returned to civilian life. Unlike my father‘s generation, returning from World War II, we were not seen as heroes. Some had a tough time reintegrating into society.

Now 43 years later I have a different feeling when the drums go by. Having seen our flag flying on a pole far away from home, and I realize that our life in this wonderful democratic country was bought for a great price. We’ve been given the right to vote by guys who put their lives on the line for us. Bravery means something deeper to me than it once did. Occasionally I’ve been thanked for my service. I nearly cried, remembering the many who never came back, or didn’t come back whole.  I’m still alive with four limbs in a loving family and a job

  Think about those who are celebrated every November 11, and say a little prayer.