Pressure Points of the Horse's Head

I recently gave a quick lesson for a novice rider on a horse I had sold her. We focused mostly on getting the horse collected and using her body correctly. It is a complex thing to teach, even to advanced riders. Most educated horsemen would agree that true collection is a whole-body process, but it is common to see riders focus only on the headset. Collection is easy to fake when you only work the front end — mostly because that is where the reins, headstall and bit are, and where the horse reacts most, because the head carries so many pressure points.

I stressed to this rider that a horse dropping its head when she see-saws the reins is not good horsemanship. What that motion actually does is create pain: see-sawing a bit causes abnormal pressure on the tongue, the palate and the lips, and if a leverage bit is in use, on the poll as well. I spent the rest of the lesson trying to rewire her thinking — headset alone is not collection, and an awareness of how a bit interacts with the horse matters enormously.

Which brings me to pressure points, and specifically the head.

The pressure points

A horse’s head has multiple pressure points, all of them subject to the bits and halters we choose. Here is the anatomy in plain terms.

The skull is multiple bones fused into what is effectively one solid piece. The upper part — housing the eyes, the brain, the sinuses, the top teeth and the soft muzzle that horse-obsessed people love to kiss — is the maxilla. The lower part, where the bottom teeth sit, is the mandible. Between the ears, where the atlas vertebra meets the skull, is the poll: one of the more vulnerable and sensitive parts of the horse.

Nerves cover both the mandible and the maxilla, and all of them can be affected by pressure from bits, halters and headstalls. I will not go deep into the nerves themselves. What matters is that they are there, and that it is the interaction with pain receptors that makes a horse react.

The poll

The brain is vulnerable here, and abrupt trauma to this area can do irreparable damage. It is also exactly where headstalls and halters rest. Pressure builds two ways: a thin headstall or halter concentrates more force than a thick one, and the severity of a leverage bit changes how hard that headstall presses into the poll. The poll is mostly affected by leverage bits — when pressure arrives there, the horse moves away from it, which is to say downward.

The palate

Thick enough to handle tough roughage, and still sensitive to a bit. The palate is directly affected by single and multiple jointed mouthpieces and by ports. When the reins are activated, the joint folds and directs pressure onto the palate. A horse that is sensitive there, or one ridden with heavy hands, will gape its mouth or throw its head up to escape it.

The bars

The toothless section between the incisors and the molars — the interdental space. Some horses prefer pressure on the bars over the palate, or the reverse. Whatever bit is in the mouth, there will be some bar pressure the moment a rider takes up the slack; the severity of the bit decides how much. A mullen mouthpiece concentrates pressure here. Signs of bar sensitivity: chewing the mouthpiece, sticking the tongue outside the mouth, head tossing, and over-reaction to rein contact.

The tongue

Pressure here is unavoidable. Whatever its shape or material, the bit rests on the tongue.

Most horses tolerate it well. The ones that do not — an anatomically thicker tongue, a prior injury, or simple preference — may do better with a ported bit or a material other than the usual metal. Signs of tongue sensitivity: gaping, and putting the tongue over or behind the bit.

A cautionary tale

I sent a couple of young fillies to a local trainer for their first stages last summer. He had a good reputation, and when he collected them he struck me as gentle and well educated. After 30 days I hauled the trailer to his facility to pick them up. His daughter had put the initial rides on them, and she got on each horse to show me what they knew.

I knew immediately that I needed to leave with those horses as soon as possible.

Each filly had sores at both corners of the lips — which made sense the moment she put a thin twisted wire snaffle in their mouths. When I asked why she was riding young horses in twisted wire, her answer was “to get them softer faster”.

Of course it does. A twisted wire is a thin mouthpiece with a small surface area, so it delivers high pressure to a small patch — which is exactly why the corners of their mouths were raw. Those horses were not far enough along to understand that kind of isolated pressure, so they fought it through the first rides until the pain became literal raw skin and they had no choice but to go “soft”.

The corners of the lips

In my personal opinion, using advanced tools on novice and uneducated horses is nothing short of cheating, and false training.

The corners of the lips are fatty tissue without a great many nerves, but they are still a pressure point wherever a bit interacts with them, and still a place pain can occur. Ill-fitting or worn-out bits pinch the skin here. Make sure your bit fits and is functioning properly, and do not overlook this area when you are working out how a bit sits on a horse.

The nasal bone

Very sensitive, and commonly overlooked. The nasal bone is a thin bone running off the maxilla, ending before the muzzle, and it is vulnerable if a halter, hackamore or noseband sits too low or is done up too tight.

A flash noseband — designed to strap a horse’s mouth shut so it cannot gape and escape bit pressure (analyse that piece of tack as you will) — can be tightened enough to bruise the bone it sits over, or break it. A thin rope halter fitted too low on the nose can do the same under acute pressure. So can a leverage hackamore worn too low. Properly fitting equipment is essential to the humane management of a horse.

Listen to your horse

Someone far more qualified than me could go into the specifics of equine facial nerves and how tack interacts with them. For the rest of us, the horse will tell you. Watch for signs of pain and signs of relaxation, resistance against collection, harmony against chaos. Understand the anatomy at least at an elementary level, look at how the equipment actually fits, and work out what pressure it applies and where.

Stay open to the companies putting real research into the science of bits, because that knowledge is changing how bits get made.

Once you know better, do better. And always love the horse before the sport.