Fitting Your Bridle

Fitting a bridle on a horse involves taking into account the brow band that goes across the forehead, the throat latch that wraps underneath the head and the nose band that goes across the nose. Make sure a bridle fits properly for the horse's comfort with helpful advice from a veterinarian in this video on caring for horses.

Hi, I'm Dr. Joanna Robson. I'm a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine with Inspiritus Equine, Incorporated. I'd just like to give you the basics of bridle fit. Here, we're looking at an English bridle, but there's some really important considerations when checking to see if your bridle fits your horse appropriately. And an ill-fitting bridle can certainly affect your horses performance. Most importantly, the browband, the top portion of our bridle, has to be large enough to accommodate for our horse's forehead and temporalis muscles. If the browband is too short or too small for the horse, it'll actually pull forward on the crown piece which can dig into or pinch the base of your horse's ears. So make sure that when your bridle's on appropriately, your brow band is big enough that there's no forward pull into the base of your horse's ears. Second, the throat latch. This is a big, big important strap right here. The throat latch is important for holding your bridle onto your horse's head. However, all too commonly, the throat latch of the bridle gets adjusted in such a manner that it is done up through this portion of the horse's throat, through here. If it's too tight, it can actually impinge on your horse's ability to breathe. The throat latch should actually be done up across your horse's jaw and should have a hand's width vertical space. This way, you can be certain that your bridle will still be held on, but you're not at all impinging on your horse's ability to breathe. Thirdly, the nose band or the Cavesson of the bridle. There are many different nose bands these days. This is a regular plain Cavesson. When the nose band is done up correctly, you should still be able to fit one to two fingers beneath your horse's jaw and the latch part of your horse's nose band. If the nose band is done up too tightly, again it can cause painful pressure over the horse's skull and the bridge of the nose. The nose band height should be adjusted so that there is about one inch between the zygomatic bone, the ridge on the side of your horse's face and the top of the nose band. And there, I can fit about two fingers or one inch. The basics of bridle fit then dictate that we have an appropriately fitted throat latch that allows enough space, so we don't impinge on breathing, that our brow band is large enough that it doesn't pull the bridle forward into the horse's ears, that are nose band is done up approximately one inch beneath the cheek bone and that we can fit one to two fingers between the horse's jaw and the nose band when it's done up.