A Moorish Device
Copyright©1996-1997 Phetsy Calderon, all rights reserved. Portions copyright 2002 Phetsy Calderon, all rights reserved.
In A.D. 711, a Moorish army of 7000 Berbers (and 300 Arabs) invaded Spain and began Arabia's eight-century-long gentle tyranny over the Iberian Peninsula.
Along with oranges and olives, music and mathematics, silk and silverwork and poetry, the Moors brought with them an essential tool of what would become the first great European school of horsemanship.
They called it 'al-hakma...'
'...la jaquima...'
"...hackamore.'
The Moorish-Andalusian hakma was simply a noseband, braided of whatever plaiting material came to hand, and used on camels. When Arabs began handling horses, they adopted this simple handling device for their thin-skinned, hot-blooded horses.
Whether it was the hakma, the disciplined fury of the Moor's tactics, or the great speed and quickness of the little desert horses, the Spanish horse troops were no match for their North African opponents.
Along with centuries of practice with the hakma, the Moors brought with them to Spain a riding style that used a shorter stirrup and more forward position than the Spanish were used to. They called it "a la jinete" ("on the shoulder").
The Moors were rather benevolent absolute rulers, and over the 800 years that they ruled Spain, their subjects learned a great deal from them. It was a two way exchange in which the Spanish provided the palate-style bits. The blending of these two horse cultures laid the groundwork for the sequence of hackamore/two-reins/bridle use that would become the hallmark of the American reinsman.
In 1536, when the conquistadores reached what would come to be called the American West, the demands placed on working horses immediately began to change. They went from being cavalry troopers to cow headers, and along the way, the Spanish war saddle grew a serious horn and thicker, but not wider, swells. Along the way, the hackamore developed into the jaquima, bosal, and bosalito, the bits grew more refined and varied, and the spectacular feats of horsemanship that grew out of wartime needs were transferred to grizzly roping and brushpopping.
Back in Old Spain, a similar process took place as the role of the war horse evolved into the vaquero's herding horse, and the flash-reined rejoneador's bullring mount. The latter practice is the exact point of correspondence between the riding of Old and New Spain, the disciplines of classical dressage and reinsmanship. In Spain itself, the sequence for developing the finished horse started with the cavesón (cah-VEY-sohn), better known today as the cavesson. Just as in the New World, a form of the two-reins came next, ant the horse finished straight up in the bridle.
The parallels continue in the modern era. Although Spain has perhaps been more successful at retaining a less altered form of its tradtional horsemanship, there is also a competion, called doma vaquera, that is approximately the parallel of U.S. stock horse contests.
The following sections are simply intended to give you a bit of understanding about some basic concepts of hackamore use. Horsemanship is not an academic subject that can be learned from a book or a Web page, and this is especially true of the hackamore.
One thing a hackamore isn't, is a hackamore bit. The two work on quite different principles. When I say hackamore, I mean 'bosal' or braided leather/rawhide/twisted mare hair noseband only.
The hackamore is a very ancient device. It, like all other bits and headpieces, forms part of a system with the rider's seat, leg position, and hands.
It is an almost purely lateral device: it simply has no longitudinal effect worth mentioning. In other words, if you haul straight back on both reins, all you will get is a horse with his nose in the air. It works one rein (and a lot of seat and leg) at a time.
The hackamore is actually a lifting device. It can encourage the horse to engage his hindquarters and lift his forehand, when used in the traditional manner. The rider pushes the horse forward with a soft seat, allowing his upper body to tilt back slightly as the seat moves forward. This causes a slight lifting of the looped hair rein, which brings the cheekpieces of the hackamore into contact with the horse's jawbones. This contact urges the horse to lift his head by stretching his neck. As the contact moves through its range of motion, the hackamore nosebutton rotates down on the nose, urging the horse to flex. When the rider's seat moves back into normal position, his body moves to the normal centered, upright position, the reins are slacked, and the hackamore cheekpieces and noseband return to their at-rest position. This process is most apparent at the lope, but can be achieved (with much practice) at the other two gaits.
All this assumes a correctly fitted hackamore. Fitting a hackamore is more complex than fitting a bit. You have to consider the diameter, weight, stiffness, and fineness or coarseness of the hackamore braiding, plus the roundness or oval-ness of the muzzle opening. Then there's the point you hang it at, and how many wraps you can take with the hair rope without tightening the hackamore so much there's no travel in the cheekpieces. Also, the cheekpieces should only travel about 1-in. before they contact the horse's jawbones.
Yes, it can leave rub marks: especially if Young Mr. Horse is not paying attention to business! As a rule of thumb, rubbed spots that are about twice the width of one strand of the hackamore braid and three times as long are normal, even if some skin as well as hair comes off. By the way, these are the moral equivalent of the small marks snaffles sometimes create at the corner of young horses' mouths. If they are weeping fluid or bleeding, first wrap the cheekpieces of the hackamore with soft cotton cloth (not VetRap). Then figure out why the horse is not answering to the hackamore.
The major barrier to using a hackamore successfully is getting your seat correct (is there any riding discipline for which that's not true?). The most common problems for new hackamore users are
The first problem is usually a result of not understanding how the device works or how to fit it. You need to have an independent seat, and you need to understand that you emphasize your seat and legs and let the hackamore augment those two aids. Otherwise, if you try just using your hands, Texas style, you're going to end up with a horse running through the hackamore, or sticking his nose straight up, or just generally not going along with the program.
The second problem comes from forgetting that even though you are sparing your horse's mouth, you have encircled his whole muzzle with rawhide. With young horses, the problem to watch for most carefully is putting a callus bump on the nose. That's pretty much all she wrote as far as getting response from the critter. You don't want to start by padding the nosebutton, but you much watch carefully for this problem, and move the hackamore up or down if you think it might develop.
Other potential problems include numbing the jaw and, very very rarely, dislocating the jaw (almost a freak condition, but not impossible in *young* horses).
The hackamore is a training device, so horses should be expected to move in a longer, looser frame than they will when finished in the bridle. Horses will move a little differently, and one of the first signs of success with this device is the horse going a little down on his forehand at the lope. This is because he is trying to move forward into the hackamore, but doesn't yet have the muscles to lift his front end. This is often seen in Quarter Horses, who start with those wonderful long hips and well-muscled quarters. The cure is to give the horse time to develop his back, stomach and balance. He'll gradually bring himself up in the front, and lower his hocks, as he develops.
If you pull steadily on a hackamore, you encourage the horse to lean against the rein, and will soon lose control. It's pulse, pulse, pulse that works.
Also, a horse's conformation will have quite an affect on his response. Don't expect your Morgan to answer to it the same way your Quarter Horse did.
Hackamores don't work miracles. Perhaps more than any other device, if you haven't been correctly taught how to use one, you can create all kinds of messes for yourself quite fast. Worry more about the wetness of your saddleblankets than the mystery of your bosal and your horse will benefit.
Last revision 7/31/2002
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