Bitting help - opening his mouth

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thinkitwasjune

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My 6yo TB is currently in a loose ring snaffle with a French link and a relatively thin mouthpiece. He goes beautifully but often opens his mouth or chomps on the bit - although sometimes once we have really got warmed up etc he is more relaxed in his mouth. Can anyone tell me why he might be doing this? The bit fits correctly and his teeth have been checked. I don't want to use a flash as I would like to figure out why he is doing this and correct that rather than strapping his mouth shut.
 
IMO, he's doing it because he is uncomfortable for some reason. If you think that he goes well in the style of bit, perhaps it is the material that it is made from that he is objecting to. The relaxation when he is warmed up would also support that theory. It would be worth getting some different materials to try, e.g. happy mouth/NS/aurigan, rather than stainless steel.
 
As long as he's not opening his mouth really wide I would ignore it.
It probally a bit of resistance or stiffness coming out in the mouth or perhaps he just feels like opening his mouth now and then, you could try some different snaffles and see what happens this is something I do often , change between snaffles and see what difference you see.
I avoid flashes IMO in most horses they don't help much better to continue the training and see if the issue settles as the balance develops .
Of course if a horse is opening its mouth and dragging the rider round the school thats different .
 
I would also have his saddle and back checked. My TB chomps the bit if she is unhappy elsewhere. I know exactly when her saddle needs looking at as she is building muscle and changing shape constantly through the work we do. Luckily I have a fair few saddles so when she starts chomping, I can swap saddles and when the right one is one, chomping stops and nice work starts again. Could equally be back.

Rule those out first, otherwise you risk overlooking an easily solvable issue.

Good luck.
 
Goldenstar said:
As long as he's not opening his mouth really wide I would ignore it.
It probally a bit of resistance or stiffness coming out in the mouth or perhaps he just feels like opening his mouth now and then, you could try some different snaffles and see what happens this is something I do often , change between snaffles and see what difference you see.
I avoid flashes IMO in most horses they don't help much better to continue the training and see if the issue settles as the balance develops .
Of course if a horse is opening its mouth and dragging the rider round the school thats different .
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This is what I think myself. Most of my bits are too big for his dinky little mouth but I'll see if I can borrow a couple of different snaffles to try.

I should have said that he's not strong at all, him opening his mouth does not have any effect on me - I would just like to understand why he does it!
 
You say he's a TB, is he an ex racer? It's pretty common for an ex racer to do this when they are not completely relaxed. Some grind their teeth too, that really drives me nuts!
 
He's telling you something. Shy tells me in no uncertain terms if he hates a bit - we have now settled on an eggbutt sweet iron, and you wouldn't even know he had it in his mouth.

Please don't strap the mouth shut though :)
 
cptrayes said:
You say he's a TB, is he an ex racer? It's pretty common for an ex racer to do this when they are not completely relaxed. Some grind their teeth too, that really drives me nuts!
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My ex racer grinds his teeth when we're schooling. It drives me insane! It's mostly only when we're schooling, so I tend to hack a lot more than go in the school lol :D
 
cptrayes said:
You say he's a TB, is he an ex racer? It's pretty common for an ex racer to do this when they are not completely relaxed. Some grind their teeth too, that really drives me nuts!
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He was a point-to-pointer, yes. It's the chomping on the bit that really gets me, the noise just grates on me! I think that is probably just impatience though :p
 
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