Is Your Horse Resisting the Bit? Or is it a Dental Issue?

If you’re having any kind of resistance issues (find this video on the Dennis Moreland Tack blog at [ Ссылка ]) to either a bit or a hackamore it's a good idea to get your horse’s mouth and teeth checked. Too often these type of problems are caused by oral pain and not training issues. Dental care is important for top performance and for the health and comfort of your horse. Routine dental inspection and care needs to be performed about every 6 months. More frequently if an issue arises.

Certified Equine Dentist Randy Riedinger is owner of Equine Dental Consultants of Weatherford, TX. He's using horse skulls in this video to show us why the premolars and molars (cheek teeth) need to be floated regularly. Included is information about the anatomy of the mouth and where a bit works inside the mouth.

Horses have hypsodont teeth. These teeth have very long crowns (the body of the tooth) and short roots. The majority of the crown (about 4 inches when a horse is a 4 year old) of each cheek tooth is embedded in the jaw bones. The part of a cheek tooth we can see when we look in a horses mouth is about ½ inch long.
The cheek teeth erupt slowly (they don’t actually grow) over the horse’s lifetime. They erupt at about the same rate as the visible part of the tooth gets worn down by chewing hay and grass. When a horse gets old there's almost no tooth left and the small stub may just fall out.

The bottom of the horse’s jaw is narrower than the top. This causes the lower cheek teeth to sit inside the upper cheek teeth. The upper teeth form a ledge over the lower teeth. When a horse chews it moves its bottom jaws from side to side to grind the roughage it’s eating. The grinding helps to cause the insides of the bottom rows of cheek teeth and the outsides of the top rows of cheek teeth to develop sharp edges or points. The sharp edges need to be filed or floated at regular intervals to keep the horse healthy and comfortable. Since the teeth continually erupt the edges will need to be filed approximately every 6 months. If you notice your horse is chewing oddly, dribbling feed, not flexing, fighting the bit or hackamore or throwing its head it’s a good indication its teeth may need to be worked on.

Get regular dental care performed to get the best from your horse. This is an important step in maintaining his health so he can give you his top performance!

Dennis Moreland Tack is a full line manufacturer of handmade tack and we’re here to help you! Visit www.dmtack.com, call 817-312-5305 or write to us at dmtack@vrfmail.com.

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