Advancing Past the Basic Snaffle 

right

I went back and watched and I agree this was a poor video. We will do better.

Hey there. I had to go back and watch the videos because believe it or not I have nothing to do with what gets posted or when or anything else. I come up with ideas and the producer does the rest. In this case we were in a clinic in Florida (she films the entire clinic and picks what to post) the lady that owned the pony was riding him in a snaffle and just always in a pulling match with him. Some people there knew the horse and told me he was better than she made him look etc. The bit in question was barrowed, it was some kind of broken mouth shank bit but I dont recall what. This was done in Dec. Anyway it doesn't matter what the bit was the point was going to more bit sends a better signal. Thank you for getting after me about this, gives me a chance to yell at the producer like she yells at me LOL

@@HorsemanshipAsAnArt Thank you so much for the follow up. I do think the bits under discussion matter, though, especially if the point of the video is advancing a horse from one bit to another. "More bit sends a better signal" is vague concept that probably means something specific to you and to a subset of your followers. But for those us us who subscribe to your channel and your Patreon because we want to learn something -- and how bits actually work is high on my list of interests -- it's not much help. I feel like I'm being a buzzkill, wanting more specifics than you feel like putting out there. My problem, not yours LOL.

@@epona9166 Its not a buzzkill but it is also not something that has a magic recipe. I say that the bit is irelivent and yet you still want to know what the bit is. That is the answer. It does not matter what the bit is but how it is used. If you search through the archives of both RU-vid and Patreon videos you will find that I very specifically explain how bits work.

I think we may have lost something in translation

He said it's a short shanked snaffle with a leather curb

@@danemoore2302 Yes, but in everyday parlance there's no such thing as a short shanked snaffle. It's a contradiction in terms. There doesn't seem to be a specific "inventor" of the term snaffle, so you can't say definitively that "snaffle" means a certain thing. The best you can do is have the grace to try to stay on the same page as the people you're speaking to -- which is almost always that "snaffle'" refers to the cheek piece, not the mouthpiece.

​@@epona9166I realize that. (Believe it or not I've watched his videos too) but it wouldn't be too much to assume he means a single broken mouth piece being that he is talking about advancing past the snaffle so one could imagine he's not changing mouth pieces just changing cheeks

@@danemoore2302 I don't think we disagree about what Bret means by "short shanked snaffle". But the person who asked the question apparently didn't know what he meant, so just quoting Bret back to him didn't answer his question. Something along the lines of what you wrote above -- no port/single jointed mouthpiece -- might have helped. The thing is, the frustrating thing is, when he talks about advancing past the snaffle, he IS -- as you say -- talking about snaffle-as-cheekpiece. Advancing from non-leverage to leverage. So sometimes snaffle means the cheekpiece and sometimes snaffle means the mouthpiece.

I think you missed the point

Fjord horses usually dont grow a mane.

@HorsemanshipAsAnArt you better double-check this. I've seen two that had at least 10 inch manes. I saw a Texan shave one like the one in the video and was appalled. There is a traditional way of trimming the mane, arched and trimmed to expose the dark band in the middle, and it is true it is short, but that doesn't mean it doesn't grow. They are not mules.

I have never heard of her but your comment made me look the video up. I've stepped off my horse for way less than that. She needs a good quirtin

I have no idea what that means.

@@HorsemanshipAsAnArt she was kicked out of the Olympics after a video surfaced of her mistreating a horse.

He's 100% accurate about 90% of the clinicians out there! I've attended clinics from local/regional to national for years, actually decades, always looking to improve my horsemanship and game. Every single one of them left me with unanswered questions, sometimes more. When I've asked some difficult questions, I get either a White House press conference response, or an end around answer. Wait! What's the difference? Have I learned anything from them? Yes, but very little though for the price I paid. Regarding trainers? Ding ding ding...same answer. I've seen it many times fist hand. But, this definitely doesn't apply to all! Just an FYI, I'm not in any way a green or Novice rider or competitor, nor a professional.

Really don't think that was the main point of the video at all. The point that I heard was that we advance a horse from a snaffle when the basics are mastered and we are looking for the next step of more refined, more sophisticated means of communication. There are things you can do in leverage bits that you can't do in a snaffle and it has nothing to do with pulling harder on the reins because your snaffle doesn't work anymore. If that's the case, you have much bigger issues to worry about than bit selection. We don't go to a shank bit because we need something stronger; we do it because we need something more refined. And we should seek that as soon as the horse is ready.

@@barrynelson634 I appreciate your comments and totally agree that it's hard to get horse questions answered. I don't have the clinic experience you do, but when I ask questions on RU-vid I'm so careful with the framing and try to ask narrow questions that can't be misunderstood or misinterpreted, and even then I get muddled answers.

@@emilylewis7642 I agree that insulting fellow trainers -- accusing them of failing to advance a horse bit-wise for their own financial gain -- wasn't the intended main point of the video, but it was the clearest message LOL. It's become more common for RU-vidrs to post clips from larger discussions that leave the context out -- in this case, what bit is in that horse's mouth. Any discussion of bits immediately gets my attention; I just find it a fascinating topic and bc I've only ever ridden in a snaffle, I'm always looking for explanations of how moving on from a snaffle to a leverage bit advances the horse's training. I need to understand that before buying a leverage bit. Anyway the problem with Bret is that he considers any broken mouthpiece to be a snaffle, regardless of the cheekpiece (rings, or shanks) so when he talks about snaffles in a video like this, it's hard to know what he's talking about. He says here that "it doesn't have to be this exact bit -- any short shanked snaffle with a leather curb..." would make this horse happy. So I guess he's using a bit with a broken mouthpiece. Hope that clarifies where I'm coming from.

Thank you, I will do better.