Advice / Experiences of strange bit / tongue problem please

[happihorse]

My horse occasionally gets a bit tense when I'm schooling him and pulls his tongue up inside his mouth. He then gets it stuck behind (not over) the bit and panics. I have removed his flash noseband so he can open his mouth when it happens and move the bit very slightly in his mouth so as to help him get his tongue back.

He is ridden in a KK Ultra snaffle (with lozenge).

He doesn't do it all the time, but when he does he gets really stoppy and it really messes up his way of going. Becuase he gets tense from doing this, he gets even more worked up.

Does anyone have any advice / experience / suggestions on how to overcome this?

Thanks

 

[Tierra]

How is he bred? And how is his mouth structure?

KK schooling bits tend to be rather wide and bulky and while this does, in theory, make them a gentler bit, it also means that horses with smaller mouths have an awful lot of metal in their mouths which can make it uncomfortable.

Similarly some breeds have notibly large (thick) tongues, which combined with small mouths leaves very little room for bits.

Example.. warmbloods tend to have quite large fleshy tongues.. connemaras tend to have rather small mouths. I have a connemara x danish wb and the result is that he has to be bitted quite carefully to avoid him having issues.

Just a thought

 

[Judie]

I use a KK training lozenge snaffle which is thinner metal with a drop noseband and it works very well, my horse has a small mouth with a large tongue and he seems very happy in it.

 

[happihorse]

He is a 16.2hh Dutch warmblood, but not a very heavy type. He has a smallish muzzle and quite a big tongue. I think I may have to experiment with lots of different bits!