Horse tack
This equipment includes such items as saddles, stirrups, bridles, halters, reins, bits, and harnesses.
Saddles are seats for the rider, fastened to the horse's back by means of a girth in English-style riding, or a cinch in the use of Western tack.
The English stirrup (or "iron") has several design variations which are either shaped to allow the rider's foot to slip out easily or are closed with a very heavy rubber band.
[1]: 185–187 The invention of stirrups was of great historic significance in mounted combat, giving the rider secure foot support while on horseback.
Bridles, hackamores, halters, or headcollars, and similar equipment consist of various arrangements of straps around the horse's head, and are used for control and communication with the animal.
Some horses, particularly stallions, may have a chain attached to the lead rope and placed over the nose or under the jaw to increase the control provided by a halter while being led.
[2]: 384–385 In Australian and British English, a halter is a rope with a spliced running loop around the nose and another over the poll, used mainly for unbroken horses or for cattle.
A show halter is made from rolled leather and the lead attaches to form the chinpiece of the noseband.
An underhalter is a lightweight halter or headcollar which is made with only one small buckle, and can be worn under a bridle for tethering a horse without untacking.
Double bridles are usually seen in the top levels of dressage, but also are seen in certain types of show hack and Saddle seat competition.
[1]: 158 Some related styles of headgear that control a horse with a noseband rather than a bit are known as bitless bridles.
Some riders also like to use them in the winter to avoid putting a frozen metal bit into a horse's mouth.
[3] Reins consist of leather straps or rope attached to the outer ends of a bit and extend to the rider's or driver's hands.
The driver carries "four-in-hand" or "six-in-hand" being the number of reins connecting to the pairs of horses.
Snaffle bits commonly have a single jointed mouthpiece and act with a nutcracker effect on the bars, tongue and occasionally roof of the mouth.
Conversely, a very severe bit, in the right hands, can transmit subtle commands that cause no pain to the horse.
A breaststrap harness has a wide leather strap going horizontally across the horses' breast, attached to the traces and then to the load.
A harness that is used to support shafts, such as on a cart pulled by a single horse, will also have a saddle attached to the harness to help the horse support the shafts and breeching to brake the forward motion of the vehicle, especially when stopping or moving downhill.
They are also seen in Western riding events, particularly in rodeo, reining and cutting, where it is particularly important to prevent a saddle from shifting.
Various styles can be used as a control measure, to prevent the horse from avoiding rider commands by raising its head out of position; or as a safety measure to keep the horse from tossing its head high or hard enough to smack its rider in the face.
There are other training devices that fall loosely in the martingale category, in that they use straps attached to the reins or bit which limit the movement of the horse's head or add leverage to the rider's hands in order to control the horse's head.
