Sweet Iron Bits

Crazy Mare

Crazy Mare

New Member
Sep 9, 2005
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Yorkshire
Does any one have any experience of using bits with either a sweet iron or copper mouth piece?

Do you find using one has encouraged your horse to accept contact?

If so, what brands would you recommend?

Thanks x
 
I used a fat sweet iron French link on my old cob & I compete my friend's horse in a thin sweet iron French link with a copper link in the middle (not sure what make). Nice bits, they definitely encourage salivation/acceptance of the bit & seem to go down better than normal stainless steel bits, although in the end I bought a KK Ultra for my old cob & he went best of all in that.
 
They do help with some horses but I've got one that prefers stainless steel to copper or sweet iron so goes better in a plain stainless steel bit.
 
I love the Myler range - all of which are sweet iron - for the other features of the bits as well, such as independent ckeek piece movement, less tongue pressure, etc ...

x
 
I use a sweet iron french link bit on my 4yo haflinger mare as she kept chomping through the happy mouth bits!!! she likes it very much and lots of nice salivation etc.

not sure make is esp important unless you are after a complex shape or more sophistication eg myler etc:)

i went for the cheapest and its as good as the expensive one I got, in fact I think they might be identical!!
 
My horse's western bridle has a tubular D-ring snaffle with a rather thin sweet iron single-joint mouthpiece. He comes onto that bit nicely when I ride him on contact in that bridle (it has no caveson). But he does the same in his English bridle, which has a plain single-joint eggbutt snaffle as well as a cavesson, so I can't really say that there's much difference in the way he carries the two bits.
 
Doesn't matter what you put in my horse's mouth, he seems to be fine in anything. But I use a sweet iron french link with a copper piece. It's loose ring and he's soft even when I ride one handed for western schooling. I also have a stainless steel french link d-ring for English and he's fine in that too.
 
I swapped my new forest mare, from a full cheek rubber coated snaffle, (which with hindsight she hated) to a full cheek sweet iron snaffle, the difference is huge, she is much more responsive, and happier with the bit.

Jenny
 
ALL horses are different so the type of bit you use including the type of metal/rubber/nylon etc will vary according to each individual horse.
 
Thanks for sharing your experiences :)

My horse "came with" a happy mouth snaffle, which I don't think she was ever really happy with.

She appears to be much happier and goes better in the stainless steel french link she has now but I still feel she isn't 100% accepting of it (She doesn't have problems with her teeth or anything like that).

Think I'll give a sweet iron mouth piece a go and see what she thinks.
 
Fox is in a loose ring sweet iron French link with a copper piece, she seems to be happiest in this, cost me under £12 from local tack shop. She didn't like her Myler as much, or the supa dupa KK ultra, both much more expensive :rolleyes:
 
hey!
ive had my mare in a sweet iron loose ring snaffle, which she came with but was proving to be running away from because of the nutcracker actin on her toungue. we then had a sweet iron loose ring saffle with a french link in, which was better, but we've now moved away to a loop ring snaffle, but its not sweet iron, however shes doing better in it breaks-wise
i would highly recomend this bit as my mares mouth was always nice and wet, but its not good for strong horses if just a straightforward snaffle, so maybe try to find a different bit with sweet iron if yours is a little stonger.
 
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