what is the history of the snaffle bit and it's use?

Answer 1

I hav no idea

Answer 2

There are several different types of snaffle bits. The most common one is the jointed egg butt snaffle, which has a flexible joint in the centre. Gives comfort and least amount of damage to corners of the mouth (pinched etc).

Use for it is bringing the pressure to bear on the corners of the mouth, the tongue and the bars (lower jaw).

Rubber snaffle bit is used for an abrasion in the corner of the mouth, gum or tongue.

There is also D-ring jointed snaffle, loose ring snaffle, I think something like French link snaffle, full cheek snaffl with a long synthetic bar, sweet iron D-ring snaffle is some I owned or previously knew due to knowledge of bits for State Judging.

Used for beginer (green broke) horses and inexperienced riders.

As long as their has been bridles, stainless steel, copper, um and other types of materials like rubber/aluminum, there has been snaffle bits or any other type of bit based off the horse.

Answer 3

It is believed that horses were first controlled by means of a rope around the lower jaw, a primitive hackamore or even a nose-ring as used with oxen, in some early cultures (for example the Numidians) the horse was controlled entirely by the riders' legs, with no bridle at all. There is evidence of bit wear on horses' teeth found in the Ukraine from 4000BC (see the Institute for Ancient Equestrian Studies ). Antler cheekpieces used as toggles for rope, hide or sinew mouthpieces have been found at sites on the Black Sea.

Metal bits are thought to have originated in the Near East around 1500 BC. Plain and jointed mouthpieces appeared at the same time, often with highly ornamented cheekpieces . Examples of such figurative horse bits from 8th Century Luristan can be seen at the Louvre in Paris. Early mouthpieces could be quite severe, for control of chariots or horses ridden without saddles or stirrups. The curb bit originated around the 4th Century BC (Edwards). The mediaeval warhorse or destrier was often ridden in a curb bit with an extremely high port which could put pressure on the roof of the mouth, and long shanks which increased the leverage on the curb and the pressure on the horse's poll, some bits also put pressure on the nose, much in the manner of the modern hackamore.

By the nineteenth Century there were an enormous number of bit designs. In Benjamin Latchford's introduction to The Loriner published in 1883 he wrote "the horse's mouth and temper may be compared to a lock, so made that only one key will fit it...". The same publication also includes Don Juan Segundo's treatise "A New Method of Bitting Horses"

Over time bits developed into several familes : the snaffle, curb bits (including Weymouths in double bridles), and gags. Each bit works on a different part of the horses mouth and has a different action.
from:http://www.sportingcollection.com/bits/historybits.html

A Snaffel is any bit that does NOT work with leverage. That means it has no shanks and the reins atatch to the same rings as the cheek peices on the bridle. Snaffels do not need to be jointed, and apply direct pressure. In other words, if the rider feels one pound of weight in her hands, the horse is feeling one pound of pressure in his mouth.

snaffels are used alot in english riding and in training western horses. (Truly finished western horses go in a curb, neck rein, and do not rely on contact.)

A Jointed mouthpeice does not make a bit a snaffle. A tom thumb is somtimes called a "cowboy snaffle," a "western snaffle," or a "shanked snaffle." none of these are true.

Answer 4

i dont know, but to c what it feels like in ur horses mouth bend ur arm and roll down ur sleave and put it round ur arm and get ur friend to pull. it really hurts.