07/24/2026
Alright, I'm pretty impressed with everyone's ability to ID what was wrong with these bridles.
For everyone that missed it, the cheeks of the bridle were too long, causing the buckle of the headstall to lay on top of or above the TMJ.
Now why is this a problem? Well, lets look at it this way. The TMJ is one of the most important joints in the body. Its the joint that holds the mandible (lower jaw) to the rest of the skull. A horse will use it 45-60,000 times a day just for chewing. But the jaw isn't just active when the horse is eating, the jaw is nearly constantly moving while you're riding too (regardless of what you ride in). So why would we want to set a buckle on top of a highly active joint?
Furthermore, there's also several important nerves and blood vessels around the TMJ. So when we have an ill fitting bridle, that buckle can pain and discomfort.
Let's think about this with barrel racers. One of the new big things that everybody is doing is injecting the TMJ when a horse is showing signs of discomforts. But how many people are taking into consideration that their tack could be causing the discomfort?
"But if its so big of an issue, why do all these companies make their bridles so long?" Its simple, longer cheeks mean more room for designs, and its easier to sell something pretty than it is to educate people on bridle fit.
But you don't have to choose between a bridle that fits and a bridle that's pretty. I make 2 different styles of headstalls. One is what I call the "short cheeks" and then there's everything else. The short cheeks are 7" long and 3/4" wide. I've found that to be the perfect length for most of the popular "barrel" bits and hackamores on the market and they even work well on little bitty cow horse heads. "Everything else" is all the wider, fancy cheeks. Those patterns are designed for ~10" cheeks, but I can shorten those cheeks to 8" (to go any shorter would take major pattern modifications). And I do find that the 8" still works very well for most horses.
The short cheeks start at $30, and go up as you upgrade hardware or add things like lacing, twists, and colored edges.
"Everything else" starts at $75. Those are the blanks, they're plain and have basic hardware. Very popular with the people who add rhinestones to tack. And ofcourse I can do tooling, lacing, inlays, and about anything else you can imagine on those cheeks.
You can find them here on the website, or reach out on FB for a custom order.
https://www.hlazyk.com/shop-1
I will be adding more styles of short cheeks to the website this weekend for easy ordering.
