Not Sure How Good This Will Work, But Hey, I'm Tryin'

Hey My Cowfolk-To-Be,
     Today, Christy taught me how exactly a horse bit works in controlling your horse. I tried to get pictures, but they didn't come out very well, so please bare with me.
     Christy has this really cool looking metal horse head that she uses to teach her riding students about several things, including how a bit and bridal work. ( <-- That's it with a bridal on.)
 Like I said, these pictures are really hard to tell what's going on. But here is the bit inside the metal horse mouth. Notice how the bit arches up into the horses mouth. This lightly touches the soft palette on the roof of the horse's mouth. By pulling on the reins, the bit applies pressure to the soft palette, and the head is directed either left or right. This pressure encourages the horse to be submissive to the turning of his head, so he goes in a new direction.

 Different bits have different pressure ratios. The bit that started my adventure, the one that Strolling Jim used back in the 1930's, has a 1:1 pressure ratio. This means that for every one pound of pressure you pull on the reins, it apples one pound of pressure to the horse's mouth.

Here is another picture of the bit in the metal horse mouth. The top lip cuts across the top of the picture, and the bottom lip is the part is the semi-circle toward the bottom of the picture. You can sort of see how the bit goes into the mouth and touches what would be the roof of the mouth. Once again, I apologize for the bad pictures.