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Vaqueros and Buckaroos |
Horses have been driven into lines of spears, lances, pikes, bayonets, belching cannon, and rifle fire. They have been slaughtered on the world's battlefields since time immemorial. Through the centuries horses have been jerked out of the way of blows aimed at their riders, and have suffered untold abuse to their mouths so that their riders might stay alive. More lives, of both men and horses, have been lost on battlefields as the result of bad management of horses than by all the sword strokes, lance thrusts or flights of arrows.
Bitting is one of man's oldest problems, and the eternal search for a bit that will give complete control of the horse has been going on through the centuries, and oddly enough more horses have been spoiled by bad bitting than by any other cause.
We know that the lever is one of the oldest mechanical principles discovered by man, but we do not know at what period in history ancient horsemen got the idea of using leverage to stop a horse... The curb-bit probably made its way from Egypt to Phoenicia and from there to the Phoenician colonies in North Africa, and we know that its old because horses on Assyrian and Greek sculpture are depicted with mouths pried open with curb-bits.
The trigger-reined horse which was brought to America by the Spaniards was trained for use in war and not for use as a cowhorse. The reined cowhorse evolved from the cavalryman's horse in later years.
Those old-time horsemen were unique among herdsmen in developing the bit as a signaling device, and not as a lever. For a hundred years travelers to the West Coast wrote in praise of California horses and of a horsemanship, faint traces of which exist to this day.
A bit, the measurements of which may suit one horse perfectly, may
not suit another. For that reason... the manufacturing of bits is a
great industry.
A bit with shanks in the form of an S may take a pull of four-pounds to put thirty-two pounds of pressure against the chinstrap, ile a bit with less leverage, one with straight shanks such as a Las Cruces or a Santa Barbara, will require a pull of twenty-four pounds to put thirty-two pounds of pressure against the chinstrap. The severity of the bit is in the length of the shank. But a horse's mouth will suffer just as much from a bit that has insufficient leverage and has to be pulled or jerked hard as he will from a bit that has the proper leverage and that requires a slight pull.
If a five-pound-bit is put in a ten-pound mouth, the horse will disregard it to the extent of bearing on it. On the other hand, if a ten-pound-bit is put in a five-pound mouth, the horse will suffer from too much bit. It is when a horse is bitted properly and the rider and horse have developed an affinity to each other that the bit becomes a signaling device and ceases being a lever.
In order that a horse should become well-reined he must be prepared
for the bit... and if a horse does not work on a bit it is because he
has not been prepared for it. Horses have soft or hard, tough or
tender mouths. Men have soft or hard, tough or tender hands, and the
result is the good or bad behavior of the horse.
More horses have been spoiled and more tongues have been cut with a snaffle-bit than by any other device used to train horses.
The action of any curb-bit, whether of high or low port, is never on the roof of the horse's mouth. The action is on the tongue and bars. However high the port of a bit may be, the action of the chinstrap or chain allows the port to go only so far in the horse's mouth. Since there's about two inches of space between the bottom and the roof of the animal's mouth, the port cannot hit the roof unless the chinstrap should happen to break - a remote possibility - or is left off the bit altogether, which should never be done.
The mouthpiece which has a straight bar instead of "tongue space" is the least severe, because the horse uses its tongue to cushion or absorb the shock: he balls his tongue against the bit when it is pulled against the bars.
All mouthpieces, whatever their shape, have but one function, and that is to bear on the tongue and bars of the mouth to inflict pain. The only time the bit does not inflict pain in its function as a lever is when the horse has a mouth so sensitive that the bit can be used as a signaling device and is pulled only hard enough to give a signal. This was the original purpose of the spade bit.
But when the mouth becomes so numbed by hard and constant pulling, the shape of the mouthpiece will mean very little when the bit is pulled, because the degree of severity depends on the pull and on the length of the shanks.
By the same token, the act of putting a certain form of mouthpiece in a horse's mouth does not presuppose that the animal will become well- reined, quit throwing his head, or turn and stop perfectly. d
There are 3 mouthpieces that can inflict very severe pain: they are English-bits... One is the universal snaffle-bit, another is the S- shaped US Army cavalry-bit, the third is the bit used by the Buckingham Palace guards. It has a high port shaped like an inverted V which bears down on the bars of the horse's mouth in a squeezing action.
The knowledge of bitting is of utmost importance, yet it is the least understood. The bit is a precision tool which should be the most understood of the rider's equipment.
The art of handling a horse effectively is complicated and
difficult. Even the best horsemen have to make great effort to
master it. Nowhere is work and patience more effective than in
training horses. If patience is the key to heaven, it is also the
key to a well-trained horse.
From one of the chapters on Bits & Bitting, in THESE WERE THE VAQUEROS:
The horse's jaw consists of two triangular jawbones covered with a layer of flesh between which the tongue lies. Horses vary in sensitivity and shape of the bars of their mouth. Some have little feeling, others are very sensitive; it follows that all horses will react differently to the pressure of a bit. A horse with a thick tongue will, of course, be less sensitive and will suffer less from a pull on the bit than a horse with a thin tongue. A bit that is too narrow will pinch the lips. A bit that is too wide will slide from one side of the mouth to the other and cause the horse to turn his head sideways when the reins are pulled.
Since the curb-bit, whatever its form, is a lever, it depends on the arrangement and the adjustment of the curb strap or chain for the action to be either good or bad. The shanks are the lever, the curb strap or chain is the fulcrum or prop lifting against the tongue and bars. Theoretically, this should pull the horse's chin in the direction of the rider's hand. However, if the leverage is wrong, if the lever (cheeks and shanks) do not correspond to the dimensions of the bars of the horse's mouth, the set of the horse's head, and the length of the horse's neck, the action will be opposite to that which is desired. The horse's head will go up instead of in the direction of the rider's hand. If the cheeks of the bit are too high, and the shanks are too short, the pull will be on the headstall and poll and not on the horse's mouth. The direction is which the bit acts depends on the leverage applied by the mouthpiece, the curb strap or chain, and the shanks and cheeks. If the curb strap is too loose, it will pinch the lips. If the chin or curb strap or chain is too tight, there is no leverage.
The bit is most effective when it is placed low rather than high in the horse's mouth because the action of the headstall must also be considered in the functioning of the bit. The headstall pulls the bit up and against the pull of the curb strap or chain. The mouthpiece should be placed between the grinders and croppers (molars and the incisors) and in line with the chin groove. Since horse's mouths are not all alike, each horse requires a bit adapted to his peculiar dimensions, and his reactions are decided by the amount of pressure inflicted by the bit. A bit gives a slight signal or intense pain. If the effect of the bit is in proportion to the sensitiveness of the mouth there will be no severe pain, only a signal which the horse should take.
The 4,500-acre Hunewill Ranch was founded in 1861 by Napoleon Bonaparte Hunewill and his wife, Esther. Napoleon Bonaparte Hunewill’s ancestors were French Huguenots from Alsace-Lorraine. Bonaparte’s father was in the War of 1812, and his grandfather served under George Washington in the Revolutionary War. Known as N.B., Bonaparte grew up on a farm in Maine, where he learned blacksmithing, and how to build stone walls and fences.
In 1852, N.B. ventured west to seek his fortune by mining for gold. It took him six months to sail from Maine and around South America’s treacherous Cape Horn until finally landing in San Francisco. After six years of placer-mining (that is, mining free gold, rather than lode deposits) on the Yuba River, he amassed a sizable fortune in gold nuggets and dust.
N.B. then returned to Maine to visit his family. During this visit, he fell in love with Esther, a local girl, and married her. He and Esther journeyed back to San Francisco, this time crossing the Isthmus of Panama, which took three months.
South of San Francisco, N.B. and his brother-in-law successfully operated a sawmill in Woodside. During this time, N.B. and Esther had their only child, Frank. When floods destroyed the mill in 1861, N.B. took his family east over the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the mining town of Aurora.
There, N.B. observed a need for lumber. He found a promising location around Buckeye and Robinson Canyons. By 1862, he’d built a house, filed for water rights, and begun operating two sawmills. Lumber was hauled to the flourishing town of Bodie on massive log wagons, each pulled by 16 oxen.
In 1872, N.B. bought meadowland to graze his oxen; he also acquired some cattle. The cattle were branded with the letter "H," which eventually became known as the Circle H brand.
In 1880, N.B. built the present-day Hunewill Victorian-style ranch house. He hauled granite rocks from the nearby foothills to build the cellar and two-foot-high foundation. Bricks for the two chimneys came from a brick kiln in Bodie, now a famous ghost town. The interior wood and furniture were shipped from San Francisco. He built a beautiful, gracious home designed to last a long time. And it has.
In 1883, N.B. and Esther’s son, Frank, married a young woman named Alice. Alice and Frank had four children, one of whom died in infancy. Both N.B. and Esther loved Alice very much. Because Alice enjoyed music, N.B. surprised her with a Steinway piano that he bought from a mining engineer. This beautiful piano is still in the house today.
This underlying thread of respect, acceptance, and welcoming spirit is alive and well in the sixth generation of today’s Hunewill family.
Frank and Alice’s son Stanley was the first Hunewill cowboy. Stanley Hunewill loved the ranch and cowboy way of life. In 1928, he married a schoolteacher named Lenore. During the depression years, cattle prices were very low. It was during this time, at Lenore’s urging, the couple decided to try guest ranching along with their working cattle business. It was a successful venture. Lenore handled the guest-ranch business; Stanley worked the stock. Their son, Stan, was born in 1934.
When his mother Lenore died in her early 90s, Stan found official land-grant papers in a box under her bed. Land grants were issued to the Hunewills from Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Benjamin Harris, and Grover Cleveland.
