Custom made bits are the Louboutins of WEF
Gail Kocher started selling bits over 30 years ago and knows that: “Bits are the shoe fashion of the horse industry. Everyone who comes in goes to the ‘bit wall’, even if they don’t want to buy anything they just want to look at it.”
Adam Rittenberg’s bits are among the hundreds of bits on display in Kochers at WEF, but stand out with their custom design. “The collection I’m most known for right now is my rubber block collection,” he said. “It’s in between a twist and a normal snaffle. So the horses find that bit comfortable and it gives the rider just enough.”
Adam launched his company AJR Sport when Covid hit Europe and his business buying and selling horses was affected.
“I saw that Americans weren’t coming over to Europe to buy horses anymore,” he said. “I had a Grand Prix horse that needed a bit – what we call now a half-twist, half-straight eggbutt – and I didn’t know where to get one. I realized then that other riders had the same problem. I started with that model and from there my collection just kept growing.”
Aesthetically pleasing as Adam’s bits are, he has a word of caution for riders. “A lot of riders buy things that look cool and not because they understand how they work,” he said. “We have to remember that bits didn’t do anything wrong sitting on the wall. It’s when a rider puts it in a horse’s mouth with an uneducated hand that things start to go wrong.”
Adam set out to create bits that cater to all types of horses but his advice when first buying a bit for a horse is to go back to basics. “Try something as simple as possible at first,” he said. “Understand the anatomy of your horse’s mouth and work backwards. Does it have a low palate – fleshy lips, fleshy gums. Start with something very simple and then build off of that to find a solution. Less is often more.”
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