Re: RC: Snaffle Snaffoo

[Jasmine Cave <toppere@siu.edu>]

A tom thumb is the same as a argentine except the argentine will have a
snaffle ring and shanks that curve back towards the rider. All good western
trainers start a horse in either a snaffle or a bosal, then graduating the
horse to a short shanked curb that also has a snaffle ring, then to a
"true" curb, than hopefully to a spade. The snaffle has always been used on
the western set and most english bits like elevators, gags, and pelhams
came from western designs. Miller's carries richard shrake bits that are
made of black iron, including snaffles. I ride in a double bridle for
dressage so I have a aurigan single jointed loose ring bradoon and a
stainless steel medium port sliding cheek weymouth which is a true curb.
When on trails I use an "s" hackamore. When doing saddle seat I use a port
pelham which has loose rings for the snaffle rein. When working on reining
I use a stainless steel mullen mouth weymouth.When jumping I use a
stainless steel french link full cheek. I consider myself a rider and try
not to classify myself in any one group like "english", "western",
"saddleseat", or "endurance". The reason I use weymouth for reining is that
my Appy is a bit wide in the mouth and needs a 5 1/2 inch bit, hard to find
in most western curbs. I also do all of this on the same horse. See you all
thought it was hard to find ONE saddle that fit, try finding FIVE.
	jasmine

At 05:39 PM 6/2/99 -0400, Linda_Merims@ne.3com.com wrote:
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>Susan Brehm" <RockingB@worldnet.att.net>  said:
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>> ...RideCamp is just like any
>> other Internet forum, people can say anything.  But it is an
>> extremely valuable source of information IMO...
>
>Your caution is extremely well founded.  USENET (a system of
>thousands of international newsgroups that dates from the
>early 1980s) used to be called "The network of a million lies."
>
>My favorite is the classic cartoon, "On the Internet, nobody
>knows you're a dog" caption underneath a pooch reading his
>screen.
>
>It's worth what you pay...
>
>My experience with this terminology is that the confusion
>is largely a cultural one:  people who grew up in the
>English-seat riding tradition vs people who grew up in the
>Western-seat riding tradition.  To an English-seat person,
>anything with a shank is a "curb."  (The pelham being a
>special case compound of snaffle and curb.)   To a Western-seat
>person, anything with a broken mouth is a "snaffle."
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>So, to an English-seat person, the idea of something with
>shanks being called a "snaffle" seems nonsensical, while
>to a Western-seat person it seems perfectly reasonable.
>After all, you still will never see an English-seat person
>riding a shanked bit *without* also having a snaffle
>rein in there somewhere.  (I'm not sure how to classify
>some of the newer jump bits--strange-looking beasties!)
>The closest would be a Kimberwicke with a single rein on
>the bottom slot, and to a show hunt seat aficianado, a
>Kimberwicke is anethema.  It's only the Western folks who
>will ride exclusively in a curb.
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>I might be wrong here, but isn't the use of a snaffle
>(in the English-seat sense) on a Western horse a relatively
>recent phenomena?  Like say the last 20 years or so?
>In fact, isn't the use of broken mouthed bits on Western
>horses *at all* a relatively recent phenomena?
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>One other piece of "crossover" that I havn't seen yet
>is the use of black iron (cold iron, do the Western folks
>call it?) in an English bit.  I gather the Western folks
>rave about it as being a very agreeable substance to
>a horse to have in its mouth, even more so than copper,
>yet I've never seen a black iron bit in an English equipment
>catalog (e.g., Dover's).
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>I havn't seen anybody answer Kristen's question about what
>is a Tom Thumb vs what is an Argentine bit.  Being from
>the English-seat tradition, I havn't a clue.
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>Linda B. Merims
>lbm@ici.net
>Linda_Merims@ne.3com.com
>Massachusetts, USA
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=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.    
Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/RideCamp   
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=