Loose ring snaffles have a rather bad name for beginners. According to many bit sites, it is too ‘loose’ for unstable hands. The reason is quite clear.
This bits structure allows full flexibility. The horse can rotate and play with the mouthpiece with no restriction because it will slide easily on the ring. This has a disandvantage, though. If the mouthpiece is a little narrow, it can cause pinching as the lips can get caught between the ring and the mouthpiece. Bit guards can solve the issue, though a wider mouthpiece may be more suitable. The width must be calculated depending on each horse, so I cannot say anything about that. There are many things which make this bit suitable and unsuitable for beginner hands.
One of the main things that give it a bad name is the fact that if you lightly close your hand into a fist and then release it, every bit of that is going to be mirrored in the horses mouth. So for a inexperienced person who hasn’t mastered the art of keeeping your hands stable and going with the horse, it can cause annoyance to the horse which will probably result in him misbehaving.
One of the good things about it is the horse is very unlikely to lean on the bit. For an experienced hand, it is very easy to get him to stop leaning on it. As soon as he begins to lean on it, slowly and lightly close and then open your fingers. Just make sure you do both sides at the same time or else the bit rings can slide into the horses mouth if they’re small.
I personally like those with the huge rings, as long as they don’t cause disturbance and safety issues. Because it mirrors everything to the horses mouth, the horse can’t thrust his weight on the bit and let you carry his head. The slow closing and opening shifts the bit in the horse mouth and since he is leaning on it, as you release the reins slowly the horses head will go with, which will obviously get him up.
A very big mistake novices can make with horses leaning on the bit is to let the reins go with the horse. It tells the horse that when the rider is being too fussy, just lean on the bit and wham! the rider looses contact. Without proper contact, the horse won’t work properly and he will be the boss over you. He will get in control. Obviously, we don’t wanna make him powerless but you should still have a feel of things.
So, the way it mirrors everything exactly is a pro of the bit. A beginner rider can also eventually learn how to slowly and lightly pulse and get the horse to stop leaning. Also, because the bit is not always stable and is very mobile in a horse’s mouth, they tend to avoid leaning altogether.
But many horses don’t like that movement in their mouth and prefer a stable, quiet bit, in which case, an eggbutt or some other bits may be better. Lesson horses in particular, because they know that their riders often a fidgety. Having a bit that mirrors even the slightest movement of the riders hand can be very annoying for lesson horses, that is why it is not very common among lesson horses.
So it actually depends on every individual horse and rider. The eggbutt maybe a more suitable option for many, seeing that if the loose ring rings are to small, they can slide into the horses mouth if you pull a little harder on one side.
A new innovation of a eggbutt-loose ring hybrid is also an alternative. It has the rings of a loose ring but with a ‘sleeve’ at the end of the mouthpiece, in which the loose ring goes. That prevents the pinching otherwise caused by the loose ring and helps against the rings sliding in to the mouth.
That’s it for now. Maybe later on, I’ll cover a comparison of the Dee ring snaffle, the hybrid, the eggbutt, and the loose ring, going through particular circumstances and discussing which of these suite different rider and horses.