𝗛𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗥𝘂𝗯𝗯𝗲𝗱 𝗦𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗛𝗮𝗶𝗿 𝗢𝗳𝗳 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗛𝗼𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝗕𝗼𝘀𝗮𝗹?

Have you ever rubbed the skin or hair off on your hackamore horse? It likely scared you, or at the very least changed your riding, whether for a while or just the next day. This article aims to clear up misconceptions about rubbing off hair (or skin) while providing insight into all the possible reasons it occurs. It is not always as simple as being too rough on your horse!

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑩𝒐𝒔𝒂𝒍 Oftentimes, a raw chin is not the fault of the rider but rather, their tack. A close evaluation of your bosal will often reveal the source of the problem. There are 6 reasons your bosal could be hurting your horse: loose fit, non-beveled strings, too many strings, non-shapable core, long nose-button, and/or coarse mecates. Careful evaluation of your bosal and a thorough understanding of all of its components will help the rider to prevent a sore chin.

𝑳𝒐𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝑭𝒊𝒕 Sometimes everything in your bosal is perfect. You went out and spent $550 to find the perfect bosal and $200 for custom horse hair mecates…yet your horse is still coming up raw under his chin. This can be attributed to the way you fit your bosal. Whether you believe in putting the nosebutton in the middle of the nose between the eye and nostril (like I do) or down by the sensitive cartilage (as some old timers do) is irrelevant. The room underneath the chin to the mecate is what’s important. After the mecates are tied, there should be a finger’s worth of room from the mecates to the chin, about ⅝ to ¾ of an inch. This fit will allow the bosal to move accordingly and help instill a proper headset without moving too much. When the bosal has a couple inches from the chin to the mecate, not only is it now VERY hard for the horse to understand your cues, just the simple action of the horse will make the bosal bounce around too much and rub the chin. Using a loosely fitted bosal will allow for too much movement and create a need to be hard on your horse. When the bosal is snugly fit, there are many clear signals conferred to the horse before direct contact. When it’s loosely fit, it is conferring very unclear signals and then hitting the chin way too hard. This is like whispering a command to your employee, then yelling at them at the top of your lungs. It is not fair.

𝑵𝒐𝒏-𝑩𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒅 𝑺𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 Your hands may be great, but if your bosal is poorly made then your hands don't matter much at all! One of the most common reasons for chafing of the skin under the chin is poorly beveled strings. When the braider is building a hackamore, the strings used to make the body should have the edges (preferably the hair side also called slick out) beveled. Any competent braider will bevel the edges of their strings to help the braid lay flatter and be smoother on the horse. When amateur or imported bosals are made with thick edges on the strings, it acts very similar to the rough side of a farrier rasp on the chin. Generally speaking, bosals constructed this way should meet the trash can. Depending on the roughness of the braid sandpaper and/or electrical tape may help alleviate this problem but if the strings are really thick without a bevel, no amount of tape or sandpaper will help. Save up to purchase a well made, well beveled bosal.

𝑻𝒐𝒐 𝑴𝒂𝒏𝒚 𝑺𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒐𝒓 “𝑭𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒍𝒚 𝑩𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒅” Many South American bosals are often found in the hands of equestrians for their fine string and incredible displays of artistry. Bosals that are made with 50+ plaits (strands) are beautiful, but anything over 20 plaits presents a unique problem. Having an excess number of plaits means that the horse’s sweat fully penetrates each hyper-thin leather or rawhide strand. This creates swelling and shrinking which messes with tension of the braid in addition to making each strand significantly more brittle. This will create room in the braid and make the bosal more rough on the horse’s chin like the finer side of a farrier rasp.

Having thicker plaits of leather or rawhide mean the horse’s sweat will not penetrate through the entire plait resulting in swelling and shrinking. The leather/rawhide will actually wick the sweat away much better! This preserves the quality and tightness of the braid of your bosal which helps to keep your horse’s chin unscathed. In addition to this, the material used should be taken into consideration. Personally, I prefer leather but many braiders use rawhide, hitch horsehair or even twist horsehair for harsher bosals. A bosal should be made of one of the three aforementioned materials with a rawhide, leather, or rope core. Using synthetic paracord or polyester for any part of the bosal’s body or nosebutton can quickly lead to soring your horse’s chin and or nose. NEVER use any synthetic fiber or synthetic leather.

𝑼𝒏-𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝑪𝒐𝒓𝒆 Usually a bad core is steel cable, but some finer stranded bosals from Argentina, Chile, and Peru may have rubber or pool hose as their core. Although pool hose may appear less severe than cable, neither will take and hold shape. This will render a bosal made with either type of core useless. Imagine using a tool like this. It would be the equivalent of running a 10k in shoes that NEVER break in which would be very uncomfortable. Having a bosal that does not shape means it will hold the teardrop shape instead of conforming to the more appropriate rectangular shape of the horse’s face. This creates tension on the chin (where a well shaped bosal would be wider) as well as the sides of the face by the chin. Not only is this bosal going to put all the pressure on the chin, it is squeezing it. Only a few pulls are needed to draw blood in a hackamore like this. Test for cable cores with a magnet. Rubber or hose cores can be tested by their unwillingness to shape. Put a can of beans down into the heel knot portion of the bosal and tie the side-buttons towards each other. Leave the bosal like this overnight. Untie in the morning and see if your bosal stays with that shape. If it does not maintain the shape, then it is made with a bad core.

𝑳𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝑵𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝑩𝒖𝒕𝒕𝒐𝒏 Bosals with overly long nose buttons are marketed as more comfortable for the horse which is far from the truth. The only comfort they offer is aesthetic to the eye of the amateur. Because a longer (8+ inch) nose button sets the hanger further back on the bosal, it takes the weight away from the heel knot and creates a more see-saw-like motion in the bosal. This extra unnecessary movement not only disturbs signals, it is a very likely culprit in your horse’s rubbed chin and nose. Due to the bosal’s now seesaw motion, the simple action of the horse will cause the bosal to bounce unnecessarily and slowly chafe at the chin.

Well made bosals with nose buttons of 7.5 inches or less rotate the nosebutton on the nose of the horse slightly with each pull. It is one of many signals in the hackamore set up. When the nosebutton is made 8+ inches long, a pull on the mecates makes the nose-button rotate and move downward after the rotation. It is essentially scraping its way down. Pair that with poor braid work, commonly seen in bosals with nosebuttons exceeding 8 inches and your horse will have a sore chin and nose in no time. As a rule of thumb, the nosebutton should be anywhere between 5.5 to 7.5 inches with 7-7.5 being most common among well established braiders and trainers.

𝑪𝒐𝒂𝒓𝒔𝒆 𝑴𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒔 The quality of your mecates can directly affect the chin. Paracord mecates can do a lot of damage to a horse’s chin. When bumping the bosal, the mecates will go up along with the heel knot and they will hit the chin and (depending on material) could cause a slight chafe. Over the course of even one ride, this may cause hair loss or bleeding. This is why using mohair or ideally horsehair is the best option as they are rarely the sole cause of rubbing on the chin.

𝒀𝑶𝑼𝑹 𝑹𝒊𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 Perhaps you go through the list and determine that you don’t have one of the six problems. Your bosal and mecates are perfectly matched to your horse but your horse could still get hurt on the chin. At that point, the problem is you. Fortunately, fixing YOU is much easier than fixing the horse, or replacing a hackamore rig. So how does your riding hurt the horse’s chin? It can be put into 4 simple possibilities: keeping tension (“holding”) on the hackamore, bumping too often, bumping too hard or rushing the horse.

𝑯𝒐𝒍𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑯𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒂𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆 When using a hackamore, always remember to bump and never to hold. Many riders hold or maintain tension on their mecates due to fear, unawareness, and/or lack of knowledge. Doing this in conjunction with the action of the horse causes your hold to pulsate. This means there is pulsating pressure on the chin which will quickly make it raw. Holding too long also teaches the horse to disregard the hackamore and creates more instances of needing to use a hard hand to help bring him back. Proper hackamore riding consists of bumps and releases. A good rule of thumb is that your release should be proportional to your bump. Try to make it a point to ride without feeling the face of the horse between exercises that call for legitimate contact. The Vaqueros of the old times called this “riding the slack”. Strive for riding the slack in every maneuver.

𝑩𝒖𝒎𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐𝒐 𝑶𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒏 Bumping too often is a rapid succession of bumping and “releasing”. You may be “releasing” but your bumps are so close together it's jackhammering the horse’s chin and not ever releasing fully. This can very quickly lead to hurting the chin of the horse. This friction takes hair off like a hot knife through butter. To prevent this, try to release long enough for the reins to mellow and the heel knot to fall ALL the way down. Doing so will truly facilitate a REAL release and actually teach your horse, instead of babysitting him.

𝑩𝒖𝒎𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐𝒐 𝑯𝒂𝒓𝒅 Suppose you understand and internalize the idea of not holding, not bumping too much, and releasing. One could still hurt the horse’s chin by bumping hard. There is a time and place for bumping hard, however, many people start off hard in their horse’s early bosal training and stay hard forever. The horse reacts to hard bumps as if they are normal which they are not, and the horse never truly progresses or gets lighter. Another common scenario is the horse is really light and out of fear, lack of tact, or both, the rider will use hard bumps and make the horse hard. Once hard, whether naturally or as a consequence of poor riding, the horse is much more likely to be hurt on the chin due to the fact that they need an even stronger hand, at least initially, to get them back. So how do we prevent this? Try to be as light as possible without letting the horse walk all over you. Ask first lightly, ideally how you would ask a finished horse. If the horse does not listen (which he likely won't) bump harder, but only as hard as his head. Do not pull so hard on lighter horses, try to match the weight/resistance of the horse’s head with your pulls. Be light on lighter horses, and be firm on harder horses. Each horse requires a different bump. Listen to your horse and work with him/her as an individual.

𝑹𝒖𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑯𝒐𝒓𝒔𝒆 Traditional hackamores are VERY honest meaning they teach at the rate the horse can learn. Some horses take forever to learn, and the hackamore forces the rider to go at that pace to help the horse confidently learn every new maneuver. Some talented horses may understand how to slide and spin really quickly and the hackamore will accommodate a speedy learner! The timeline is subjective. If the rider tries to push the horse to learn something faster than they are able to, the horse may crumble. Generally, rushing will create fear, nervousness, and or tension (many times all three at once). Fear and nervousness create tension, this tension will spread across the horse’s entire body much like a metastasized cancer. Here is one example, trying a lead change too soon will scare the horse and result in a disengaging of the back and hindquarters. In doing so, the horse drops his shoulders and now becomes heavy on the hackamore, this will likely lead to an appropriate reprimand that could end up scaring the horse, if not further affirming the idea that he needs to be scared. Notice the domino effect of simply trying a new maneuver too soon. Fear, nerves, and/or tension caused by rushing a hackamore horse will lead to many problems and/or bad habits such as bolting, rooting the nose up, stopping abruptly, stiffening the neck, kicking out, pain association, and many more. Due to the problems that rushing a horse can and will create, rushing will create more instances where a hard hand may need to be employed. This could very likely take some hair off the chin of the horse. To prevent this, go at the horse’s pace. If you wish to show in a futurity/derby or have time sensitive goals, using a snaffle intermittently or for a few weeks would be a good idea.

𝑰𝒕 𝑴𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒃𝒆 𝑵𝒆𝒄𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒂𝒓𝒚 What if everything is perfect? You have the gear all figured out and you know how to ride a hackamore horse, yet even still, the horse’s chin is a little raw. Sometimes it is frankly what the horse may have needed. There are horses that are too hot, too attitude-ridden, or just in need of some firm bumps to teach a lesson. It is not bad to be firm on a horse occasionally. It is bad to be firm all the time and without reason. It is also bad to let the idea of riding with light hands result in a lack of discipline. Many times people will try to ride with light hands despite the horse needing firm bumps whether as a reprimand or for clarity. By allowing the virtue of riding with light hands to take precedence over discipline and respect, your horse will quickly have no boundaries around you nor respect for your cues. Be sure to always ride very disciplined and fair to your horse. Training often gets a little hard at times to help the horse learn to be soft.

𝑺𝒉𝒐𝒓𝒕 𝑺𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 & 𝑪𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑹𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒌𝒔

My mom’s horse was famously opinionated. He had all the talent and athleticism in the world, and the muscle to go with it but his mind was dead set on being difficult. Despite being fully vetted and x-rayed, his only diagnosis was being overly opinionated. Cuing the lope often resulted in bucking, rearing, backing up, or biting your legs. Pinned ears were the norm. He often stopped and turned without reason during a lope and even threw my mom off once with that stunt. Other times, he usually hurt her legs or arms from her holding onto him or the saddle through his episodes. In retrospect, that horse should not have been purchased for my mother but she loved him. I am glad we kept him because in his older age he is an amazing horse.

One day in the middle of the week a while ago, my mom walked in the house obviously distraught. I learned it was because she made her horse’s chin bleed a little on the hackamore on one side. She felt guilty for what she did, but the horse needed it. He decided that day that his protest was going to be bolting. She cued a lope and he tried to run out at a full gallop and she quickly doubled him into the fence somewhere during his acceleration. It was not a pretty display of doubling, it was done out of fear for her safety and as a reprimand for the horse’s mischief. The entire lesson leading up to that was good compared to most other days. The only bad part was that one hard double. I firmly believe that horse needed it. He needed to know that if he bolts, he WILL be stopped. My mom’s safety was also at stake. At that point one has to ask what is more important, an unscathed horse chin or rider safety?

It is not good policy to take hair off the chin, nor is it something that you should rush to justify with any arbitrary excuse, however, it is sometimes unavoidable. It's unfortunate that some horses get hurt under the chin. It is much better to visibly SEE a hurt horse's chin with a hackamore, allowing the rider to quickly adjust their riding behavior versus injuring a horse’s mouth with a bit which is much less obvious. Riders should try their absolute hardest to avoid scraping the chin, but if, and when it happens just know it is not the end of the world.

Thank you for reading. Written By Braider & World Champion, Johnny Flores of Johnny Flores Horses