When to Use a Hackamore
We have all had the daydream: galloping bareback along a beach, or across an open, gopher-hole-less field. If you are anything like me — a control freak with an overactive imagination for worst cases — you have also wondered what happens when the beach runs out, or when the fence line arrives.
Most of us do not have wordless communication with a horse, and most of us are still working on our equitation. We need the halters, bridles and saddles to do what we want to do.
Most horses start in a halter
Horses generally begin their training in a halter, learning to give to pressure and get soft on the ground before anyone sits on them. So it is natural that the halter stays on as they learn to carry a saddle and a rider.
Good riders and trainers change one thing at a time. If the horse knows the halter, leave it there while the saddle and the rider’s weight are introduced. Once that is settled, a bit can come.
Plenty of riders keep it simpler still and introduce a side pull, a bitless bridle, a bosal or a hackamore rather than a bit. A lot of horses go very well without one. Horses dulled to a bit often find relief in a hackamore and a renewed connection. And a lot of riders simply have a calmer conscience riding bitless.
Three horses it worked for
Swapping leverage bits for hackamores
Taking over as program manager of a trail ride operation at a guest ranch, I was shocked to find almost every horse carrying people with no riding ability in leverage bits. Leverage puts pressure on the poll and asks the horse to drop its head. In uneducated hands it also causes pressure elsewhere in the mouth, and pain.
These were snacky horses — well fed, and still looking for any excuse to eat — so their heads went down for grass as the ride went on. The guest pulled the reins, which pressed the poll, which encouraged the head further down, so the guest kicked. Confusion and frustration all round. A vicious and completely unnecessary cycle.
I swapped every leverage bit for a non-leverage hackamore or a simple snaffle. The change in the horses was remarkable: less pain from advanced equipment in novice hands, fewer behavioural problems because the messages stopped contradicting each other, and happier riders getting easy rides.
The dressage horse
I rode a talented dressage horse who had come back to his original home because his rider could not get him to pick up the canter. The moment I took up the reins he dropped into what I first took for a collected frame. What he was actually doing was hiding behind the vertical, chin tucked to his chest — a learned response to years of hands yanking on his face. Responsive to the leg, and never once seeking my hand.
The next day I rode him in a hackamore with no leverage. It was remarkable to feel him reach out and look for the contact.
With no reason to hide from pain in his mouth, he offered to stretch down through the neck and the topline and actually engage his abdominals and hind end. A horse in that state needs a bitless alternative to rehabilitate mentally and physically; continued bit work would only reinforce the wrong shape and speed the loss of his athleticism. He had no trouble picking up the canter once he was using his body properly.
The broken jaw
I managed a mare who had been kicked in the head and broken her jaw years before I took over her care. On the vet’s advice she never carried a bit again, and went in a mechanical hackamore instead. It changed nothing about her ability to do her job. The only adjustment I made was swapping the mechanical hackamore for a non-mechanical one, because most of her riders were novices. She worked in it for years and was a favourite in the barn.
I know riders who started horses in hackamores and never introduced a bit at all, and those horses are as controllable as any. Grand prix jumpers clear enormous fences at speed in hackamores and win doing it.
The types, and the one real risk
I am a firm believer in hackamores — provided they fit, and provided they are not standing in for learning to ride with light hands. Badly adjusted, a hackamore does damage, and the nasal bone is what breaks.
There are two families. Mechanical hackamores carry shanks of varying length and nosebands of varying material, producing different degrees of poll and nasal pressure — the same logic as cheek pieces on a bit. Non-mechanical hackamores attach the reins directly to the noseband with no influence on the poll at all.
There are discipline conventions too. Side pulls and bosals are non-mechanical and mostly western, often on young horses; the bitless bridle turns up more in English arenas.
Whichever you choose, understand how it works and make sure it fits. A hackamore sitting too low on the nose loads the sensitive part of the nasal bone, and that is the bone that breaks.