03/21/2025
Worth a share!
RESPECTING THE GENERATION THAT TRADITION FORGOT
A client’s granddad stops to visit and see how the colt-start is coming along…
Things are going great in the hackamore, and we’re just transitioning into a bit.
The granddad eyes my sweet-iron snaffle suspiciously.
“Do you plan on riding in a regular bit? I always just started them in a regular bit.”
I carefully consider my reply.
“We’ll definitely progress into a different bit as we go. Why don’t we head into the tack room and you can show me what you’re most familiar with?”
Once there, he points out an aluminum grazing bit, forgotten under a layer of dust after being separated from a headstall I fancied.
After he leaves, my assistant, who’s all things bit-savvy, makes a point as she cleanly bends and snaps the hollow aluminum grazer along its welds. “These kind were a prop for headstall display. Never meant to be used.”
But in the moment, I simply nod.
“OK, yeah, we can definitely transition into something like that as we go.”
I pick out a carefully balanced iron curb with a similar mouthpiece, but the granddad furrows his brows, scanning the other equipment hanging on the wall… the Mona Lisa, the other carefully-selected signal bits I’ve collected over the years, the different sizes of bosals and mecates.
“I’ve never really seen these. We’d use a hack, or sometimes we used that one.”
He points to another castoff, the single Tom Thumb I have, reserved for bitting demonstrations.
The ‘hack’ he’s referring to I know means a mechanical hackamore.
I study his face, weathered by a lifetime’s worth of harsh Nebraska sun and wind and cold, and I see that he’s trying to be respectful, even though he’s probably ridden more miles than I ever will.
I appreciate his tact, and his experience, though so different than my own.
He reminds me much of my own granddad, or my first boss… all incredibly experienced, but familiar only with the gear of a generation that, at times, tradition seems to have skipped.
LOST IN TRANSLATION
Somewhere along the way, aluminum grazers and Tom Thumbs and mechanical hackamores became our everyday equipment, replacing carefully balanced iron and rawhide, or even the the utilitarian but time-tested equipment of the calvary.
This fascinates me.
I’m no historian, but from what I can figure, this seems to have happened after WWI and WWII, with the mass production of gear, about the same time that aluminum came onto the scene.
The horsemen who grew up during that time aren’t gunsels, many of them are handier than most of us will ever dream of being, but there’s definitely a gap in the passing down of tradition.
Mass-manufacturing really took a toll, and we can see this in the lack of quality in most modern equipment.
We see the bastardization of the modern pseudo-spade, the loss of signal in the hackamore, as manufacturers moved the fulcrum point down in an attempt to keep the hanger further from the eyes.
When we lost the knowledge and the mechanics of balance and signal and levers, we were left only with leverage.
It’s not just headgear…
If they grew up riding mass-manufactured saddles, many riders are often taken aback by the sight of traditionally twisted stirrups. Sadly, their knees can attest to what got lost in translation from maker to manufacturer.
We’re re-discovering those things, and it’s kind of baffling to that generation.
Most are gracious. Some are defensive.
Though they have no need to be, as this is simply a glitch in the passing down of tradition, and takes nothing away from what they’ve accomplished, the wisdom they’ve earned in spite of it.
Lapses in tradition take nothing away from the blood, sweat, and tears given to a world that is slowly dying, a world that most of our generation will never know.
Those of us who want to restore those traditions have a lot of studying to do…
But make no mistake, we’re not discovering anything new, and there’s no need to reinvent the wheel, though there are plenty of naive or slick salesmen who will try to convince us they have.
Tradition is like a multi-generational science experiment, and we can respect it as the science it is, while always evolving it, as science should.
We can also respect the experience of those who’ve had to make due without tradition or formal study, who were able to learn while just trying to make a living. In many ways, it’s a superior way to learn.
Not all horsemen are cut from the same cloth, but the good ones always seem to find the grit and grace needed.
Artwork is ‘Wrinkled Wrangler,’ by Bern Miller
