As I predicted, having a couple days off after the long 12-hour or so drive back from our competition at Rebecca Farm in Montana was not Cairo’s idea of “fun.” There was much romping and bucking in the pasture and some special behaviors in the arena the first day I got back in the saddle.
Cairo’s game of “Let’s see if I can grab this bit and control this ride” reminded me that I had resolved to try a stronger bit before we move up to training level at the Aspen Farms Horse Trials (Wash.) in early September.
Cairo actually has a soft mouth, and in the right mood, she will give me downward transitions through an exhale, and let me ride her through leg and seat. I love that and I want to ride her off my body, not my hands. However, sometimes the voices in her head that scream “Jump all the things!” and “Dressage is for pansies!” (I think she uses a different p-word) take over and I’m looking for the bit that will allow us to develop that more subtle communication.
Some women buy shoes. I buy tack. Well, I window-shop a lot of tack, and I am a used-tack sale pro, but when I can justify actually buying a cool brand-new bit, I’m all over that. Except, ironically, if I were a shoeaholic, I’d be the one with a wall of pristine shoes on display, but wearing the same pair of old sneakers every day. Given a choice, I default to a French link loose ring snaffle.
Cairo modeling one of my latest bit purchases.
Also, it’s that point in the summer where I’ve blown through most of the money I saved for showing and that puts a crimp in tack shopping. My day job at a weekly newspaper pays the bills, but I’m looking forward to the fall when I start teaching a journalism class at the community college to pay for “extras” (preferably shows and tack, but often vet bills).
When I got Cairo almost two years ago, she was an interesting horse to bit. Her breeder, my friend Becky, had tried a number of solutions—and of course the first one had been getting her teeth done—but Cairo flipped her head, gnashed her teeth and avoided contact.
For some reason, none of the things Cairo was doing with her head the first time I tried her distracted me from the fact I adored her bravery and her attitude about jumping. We were cantering to a fence and her head was so upside down I could see into her nostrils, and I’m like, “I LOVE HER!” Sold.
However, I have come to realize that having a little control over how we get to the fence is a good thing and I would prefer if our dressage test looked a little more like ballet and a little less like I’m on a dirt bike doing wheelies.
The head flipping resolved about 80 percent when I switched to a Micklem bridle. I always thought those bridles were kind of odd-looking and the people who use them have that “I drunk the Kool-Aid” thing where they want to convert all their friends to be Micklem-disciples. But when I put it on and I saw the tips of Cairo’s pretty little ears more often than her flaring nostrils I drank that Kool-Aid too. Now I own two Micklems for little miss sassypants.
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Next we put her in a Herm Sprenger duo bit, basically a narrow mullen mouth with a little tongue relief. She loved it. A lot. I competed in it her all last year until it became clear that rather than backing off the bit, Cairo had come to seize it with gusto. When my dressage trainer Leslie Chapman suggested we try a bit Cairo couldn’t hang on to quite so fiercely, I was dubious—what if the head flipping and lack of contact came back?
It didn’t, and this year loose ring French snaffles were our thing. I probably own five of those but happily borrowed a fancier one that had a little spinny thing in the middle in hopes it would keep Cairo busy.
Now, Cairo, whose motto is something like “Seize the day, seize the bit, seize anything that might be worth grabbing,” has figured out how to clutch that bit, too, so I decided to delve into my odds-and-ends bit collection and see what I had.
And I entered her in a little local hunter derby show this past weekend so I could test things out and add to the bit-trial fun.
Dr. Bristol? Two hooves down. Cairo was furious and spent the first 10 minutes balking and tossing her head. I also eyed a my corkscrew and a friend’s slow twist, but my feeling is that Cairo will hate the edge on those and I will create, not solve, bit issues.
Myler baucher? (Dressage legal!) This has potential, and Cairo lost the battle for the bit more often than she won it in our dressage lesson. Our canter lengthenings that we need for training level were mildly successful in that we lengthened and returned to a working canter rather than charged and then got miffed that we had to slow the charging.
I have decided that one reason Myler bits are so popular is that the company actually tries to explain what the bits do and how to use them. Google bits and for every website you see that says such-and-such bit is good for soft-mouthed horses there is a another site saying the bit is evil and all horses should go in a snaffle or better yet, bitless. I love that as an aspiration, but for now, I’m going with a couple rounds of bit-roulette.
Three-ring Pessoa bit with a French mouth? I liked it and it had some overlap with the baucher that could come in handy for schooling on the flat. Cairo had some anger issues that I’m starting to realize arise pretty much any time she gets the suspicion I might have more control than she does, but her mouth stayed soft and she listened.
Waterford loose ring … well, I meant to try a Waterford loose ring, but I threw caution to the wind because I was online shopping with a little whiskey in me and there was this nice video with Olympic silver medalist eventer Gina Miles explaining her double loose ring Waterford and talking about how it was mild in the mouth but strong enough for cross-country. Apparently I’m very susceptible to online bit-shopping persuasion when it gets a little late in the evening and I’m slightly socially lubricated so I bought that one.
And then when it came time for the local hunter derby I totally chickened out and only brought our loose ring snaffle. I justified this decision by telling myself snaffles are “traditional” for hunters. Never mind that I also decided to break hunter tradition and show Cairo in protective boots and I wore a polo instead of a hunt coat since it was a schooling show and hot out. I’m very good at justifying certain choices.
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Doing our best hunter derby horse impression in our loose-ring snaffle.
I suspect that had one of my trainers been with me they would have changed my mind on jumping in the snaffle again, but my eventing trainer Meika Decher is five hours away in Washington, and my jumper trainer was away showing at Thunderbird in Canada, so I loaded Cairo up and headed south on the freeway with an eventer friend who probably figured I knew what I was doing.
Despite my inability to make good choices, Cairo got a first and two seconds.
OK, so there were only three people in the 3’-3’3” division, and I think I got the first because the other riders went off course—hunter derby courses are much more twisty than regular hunters. And hunter derbies allow horses to show off a little pizzazz and that Cairo has that. Lots of it. Still, I’m pretty sure the announcer was snickering when she called out Queen of Cairo as winning handy hunter.
I’m also pretty sure Cairo seriously contemplated jumping out of the arena at one point—the wooden boards of the arena fence were not that different from the some of the wooden derby fences. I could feel her get her eye on it and it was bigger and more fun than what I was pointing her at. And between that and the four strides we easily fit in a bending line I’d seen the lower divisions do in six I decided Cairo and I really do need to take a break from the loose-ring snaffle for a while and develop relationships with different, sexier bits.
Spectators often say to me afterwards, “I love your horse, she’s so much fun to watch!” And I love that I have a horse that makes me laugh every time I jump her.
My goal is to be that amateur who, when people talk about me they say, “Wow, what a great horse, and she rides her so well!” Not that amateur that makes people think eventers are all crazy.
The Aspen Farms show in Washington is in less than a month and while my long-term aspiration is for Cairo and I to canter around like butter wouldn’t melt in our mouths, for now I will settle for having a workable bit her mouth so I can work on using my body better. Having a show coming up and moving up a level gives me a nice target for figuring out how I’m going to make that happen. Now to try out that Waterford…
Camilla Mortensen is an amateur eventer from Eugene, Ore., who started blogging for the Chronicle when she made the trek to compete in the novice level three-day at Rebecca Farm in Montana. Camilla works as a newspaper reporter by day and fits training and competing Cairo into her days.
