Salve,
I am preparing some drawings on curb-bits and terminology, and I got this image (woodcut print0 from the Polish-Lithuanian winged hussar Dorohostajski book Hippica - link in my earlier post
http://dariocaballeros.blogspot.com/2009/12/czolem-let-me-return-for-little-moment.html
These curb-bits (munsztuk in Polish) - known in Europe as 'morisco,' 'gennette,' 'gineta' between XV-XVIII ( 15-18th) centuries, were know here, in the Americas, as a 'ring bit' or 'mule bit'( US ) and the chileno or morisco (Spanish Texas, pre-1848 US Southwest and Latin America) bit. Instead of a curb chain it uses a fixed ring (some are removable while others are permanent) attached to the port (short port it should be).
According to a Californio writer and horseman Ed Connell (died in 1970s), it was supposed to be used on a 'finished' horses by experienced riders - check some paintings of Californio riders from early 1800s, I imagine in Puerto Rico, Cuba and Santo Domingo they might have done it too.
It predated spade curb-bit (still popular in the US), and perhaps came to the medieval Spanish horsemanship (in Spain) tradition via Moors hence perhaps the name: 'morisco.' But it could have been developed from the Roman Newstead-type bit (as shown in the Ann Hyland's book 'Training the Roman Cavalry'), quien sabe :) (who knows):
In Europe, Africa and Asia it was used for the war horses and parade horses (stallions and geldings alike, and mares where Arabs were involved) - Polish Army Museum has a few of these dated to the XVII century.
Obviously in the Americas it was not a war-stallion bit, but a cow horse bit, especially in the good old US. In California, until the 1930s, was also used on parade horses along with a very elaborate 'barba de freno', the same in Mexico and other Latin America. They still may use it in southern Latin America. This bit was very popular with the Navajo and other US Southwestern tribes during the XVIII and XIX century, and appears in the Southern Cheyenne ledger drawings from the 1870s and 1880s (eg Arrow's Elk Society Ledger).
It's application - it is no more cruel than any leverage or non-leverage bit when used by inexperienced or heavy-handed rider and when used on untrained horse.
Ed Connell, his book 'The Reinsman,' stated that it took 4 years of training, from snaffle through hackamore to curb-bit, to finish a reinsman's horse, to use this curb-bit correctly.
So I guess at one time there were true 'ecuyers' (master horsemen) in America (especially showmanship 'crazy' cowboys, Spanish-American and Native American rider), but also regular cowhands who destroyed horses mouths with heavy bits... c'est la vie.
Perhaps it could be beneficial for a student of this subject to read some good books by authors like Spaniards Pedro de Aguilar or Pedro de Machuca (XVI century), French 'ecuyers' Pluvinel and la Gueriniere (XVII and XVIII centuries), Californio reinsmen like Ed Connell, horsemanship specialist like dr Deb Bennett (especially her explanation here
Deb Bennett on morisco or ring bit - where she states:
"[...] my Mexican bit is kind, your 'mule bit' is unforgiving. I mean here not merely the big shank length, which multiplies the leverage by which the tongue and bars could be crushed, but the angular contour of the tongue-relief -- there IS no tongue relief in the mule bit.This stuff happens when a group of people, a culture, a society, get into a hurry. I state in "Conquerors" how Stephen Austin's colonists, when they came to Texas, rejected the Mexican work-concept -- Mexicans like to work in teams, so that man and horse can expect a little relief every so often;
Anglo-Texans prided themselves on being able to do the whole job alone. This work ethic affected everything from saddle design to the choice of rope and the way the rope was used. The Anglo colonists also preferred a different type of horse than the Mexicans. Whereas the Mexicans rode horses of Iberian descent, i.e. tamed mustangs, Austin's colonists and everybody who came from the East after them, until just before the Civil War, brought Morgans and TB-Morgan crosses. The Easterners expected their horses to be in work between four and six years of age*. They were not at all interested in learning traditional Mexican and Spanish training techniques that not only involved a long preparatory period in the bosal, but might mean the horse wouldn't be bitted until he was six years old or more.
The Anglos wanted control, and thought that the bit was the primary tool for control [...] Anglo thinking along these same lines also produced the 'western curb', which is not really an evolution from the Weymouth which Austin's colonists would already have been familiar with, so much as it is a 'chopping down' of a ring-bit -- i.e. 'chop down' the port so you only have a tongue-relief. You then hybridize that by putting on shanks that have both an upper and lower part (notice that mine has zero upper shank and yours has very little), and removing the ring and replacing that with a curb chain. This much is similar to the development which produced the Spade from the Morisco.'' )
...or simply peruse 'the Encyclopedia of Bits and Bridles'...
More to come.... I hope
*
In Old Poland, pre-1795, Polish ridding horses were trained circa 4 years old or later, and 4-6 year old stallion ('ogier') was called 'źrebiec' and was trained for war and chase whereas the older stallion was called a 'drygant,' or a 'stadnik' if he became a stud horse.
Polish warriors and cavaliers rode stallions and geldings to war and chase, not mares - or so the writers and inventories of warrior's movable estate and testamentary provisions make us believe.
