ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you!

Never for a minute have I wondered about the unique attributes of the equestrian community. But when you embark on a project such as this, you realize just how special your “horse friends” really are.

A tremendous thank you to Teun Van Riel of Equine Industry in the Netherlands. I visited Teun’s mobile tack shop long before I actually met him, but it was clear to me that whoever owned that operation had a “thing about bits.” Teun and his team graciously sent me photos of their Trust Bit series to illustrate the book and also answered my bit questions patiently and with grace.

Intrepid International also provided a great number of photos. My undying gratitude to John Craven for his enthusiasm about this project, for his contacts, for his knowledge, and for his friendship. John, Larry Mitton (president of Intrepid), and Jeri Harris (who spent a day uploading a really long and rather annoying list of photos) all helped and you’ll find many of Intrepid’s products in the pages of this work.

Brigitte Schulte and Heinz Baumann gave me a tour of the Sprenger bit factory in Germany. Sprenger also helped out with photos and Brigitte took me out for a fabulous lunch, forever changing my opinion of German food.

My local community of horse people and their various boxes of bits, stories, anecdotes, and pearls of wisdom were all super helpful. Greg from Western Mercantile and Melanie from Dan’s Boots and Saddles lent me their inventory to photograph; Nancy Ambrosiano and Laura Simpson both let me photograph their bit collections and talked to me about bitting.

My veterinarians, Mark Meddleton and Benoit Bouchet, at Meddleton Equine patiently answered my questions (always). They also allowed me (and Kip Malone) to chase them around with a camera.

Gracious photographer friends helped me fill in the blanks with their great work. Arnd Bronkhorst, John Brasseaux, Dusty Perin, and Kip Malone all contributed work to the project.

Karan Miller of Western Horseman faxed me articles the magazine had run; I also gathered info from Juli Thorson at Horse & Rider. There were many conversations, both casual and formal, about the material contained herein.

To my readers—Scot Key, dear husband who knows nothing about bits but nevertheless continued to tell me to soldier on in my darkest hours, and Nicole Polligkeit, my trainer and friend—who read the book and made notes, corrected things, and basically improved it overall.

Two wonderful horses who modeled for this project passed away this year and will be forever missed. RosenKönig owned by my friends Wanda and Mark Hage of Paradigm Sport Horses in Los Lunas, New Mexico, was the gentlest soul of a black stallion and appears in several of the double bridle photos. Volare, my own beloved horse, is seen in the shot of a horse who hangs his tongue. This book is dedicated to them.

And to my other models, Baleno and Belle, who put up with wearing too big bits and too small bits, rope halters and bitless bridles; had fingers stuck in their mouths and their lips pulled back; and suffered through this project. They were paid handsomely in unconditional love and carrots.