Neue Schule

Computer Aided Design technology has made it possible for Neue Schule to be much more innovative when creating new mouthpieces and cheeks. This new state-of-the-art technology now allows our design team to precisely and proportionally reproduce the required ergonomic shapes and details in any mouthpeice size. It enables us to match design to equine mouth conformation; profiling and engineering critical design features to fit comfortably within the tight parameters and sensitive areas of the mouth. This utilises the connection points necessary in order to promote effective communication through the rein between rider and horse.

Neue Schule designer bits promote the comfort and consequent performance of the horse. The variance in mouth conformation between breeds has been studied in detail. The various designs accommodate, for instance, large tongues, fleshy lips, thin angular bars or general oversensitivity. CAD enables us to create a precision tool that, in the right hands, subtly utilizes the specific pressure points necessary to promote a particular way of going or eradicate an unwanted bitting evasion owing to discomfort. Even when the hands aren’t perfect the attention we pay to mouth conformation in the design softens the impact and helps develop the rider/horse relationship.Without CAD technology and modern manufacturing techniques we could not have achieved the degree of precision necessary to achieve these advances.

Let’s look at one example: The Verbindend

This smoothly contoured mouthpiece creates a channel for the tongue to lie in causing the horse to soften & relax through the jaw. This then greatly emphasises the signals through the rein. It allows one to lighten the forehand, lifting the shoulder thus promoting self carriage and the ‘throughness’ needed for sustained advanced movements. It also enhances the bend for lateral work & voltes (smaller circles) etc.

When the rein is taken up this bit cleverly connects using several communication points within the mouth. The action of the angled lozenge plays a part in this. For instance when a contact is taken the lozenge rotates and applies slightly more pressure across the tongue’s centre, where it is thicker and not as sensitive. Simultaneously pressure is reduced over the tongue’s thinner, more sensitive, outer edges. Before CAD it was not possible to obtain these critical profiles and angles and reproduce them in any size or thickness without losing the integrity of the design and subsequent action of the bit.

Although the correct design of the bit is critical another extremely important factor is the material and huge strides have been made in this area. Neue Schule has identified a property of metals, the thermal diffusivity, that it believes to be important for the comfort and acceptance of the bit.

Neue Schule Salox Gold* is our unique metal that rapidly equilibrates to blood temperature so that the mouthpiece is less likely to feel like a foreign body in the horse’s mouth. If this happens we can expect a more relaxed acceptance of the bit which would promote responsiveness to the rider’s aids and culminate in a soft, consistent contact.

The following table and graph gives our experimental values for thermal diffusivity comparing Salox and a typical ‘standard’ copper alloy (SCA) bit material and gives literature values typical for stainless steel and for a high quality engineering polymer that may also be used for horse bits.

Table 1: Thermal diffusivity values (mm2 s-1) measured (SCA and Salox) or taken from literature sources for various horse bit mouthpiece materials

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