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Phetsy Calderon, all rights reserved.

Braiding the Strands of Hackamore History

There are many strands of history, culture, and practicality that have been woven together in ever-more intricate ways to produce the modern hackamore.

It’s always interesting to pluck a braid apart, and see what the craftsman did, and perhaps learn a little about why he did it along the way.

So what was the first strand in the hackamore braid? Who wove it, and why did he do it that way, with the particular material he used?


The Earliest Strands

Horses were apparently first domesticated about 50,000 years ago. They were mostly dinner on the hoof, with occasional packtrain duty. About 4,000 BC, probably on the steppes of the Ukraine, somebody decided that if a horse could tote tents, there was no reason for a man to go about a-foot. Now of course this first rider couldn’t go out and order a custom saddle, so bareback was the order of the day. But he did need something to at least direct the horse, if not exactly control him. It’s most likely that these early horsehandlers either hitched a rope around the horse’s jaw, or rigged up some kind of noseband. That noseband is the first strand in the braid of hackamore history.

The next strand to come to light is the domestication of the camel, about 4,000 years ago. Like horses, camels were used for meat and for packing before being ridden. Unlike horses, camels were first ridden with either a jawrope or nosepeg. These led to several problems: the nosepegs could tear out, leaving an unhappy, uncontrolled camel, and the jawropes could cause quite a bit of damage to the camels’ frail jaws.

Enter the hakma, the real foundation of the hackamore line. The first hackamores were most likely just rope, or palm fiber, or whatever else could be looped and tied off to form a noseband. After a few decades of use, someone probably tried out a rolled, wide, rawhide string formed into a loop with the ends fastened together, producing a device that was stronger and less abrasive than rope, but with good wear characteristics.

Some writers have put forth the thought that the Persians went to the hakma because of some pretty esoteric reasons, such getting side-to-side mobility of the spine, suppling and strengthening the neck, back, and croup, all aimed toward making better warhorses. Of course a hackamore can do all that, but most likely cutting up some rawhide and twisting a noseband was just a heck of a lot more practical than digging iron ore, smelting it, and working it into a bit.

In A.D. 711, a Moorish army of 7000 Berbers (and 300 Arabs) invaded Spain and began Arabia's eight-century-long gentle tyranny over the Iberian Peninsula.

Along with oranges and olives, music and mathematics, silk and silverwork and poetry, the Moors brought with them an essential tool of what would become the first great European school of horsemanship.

They called it 'al-hakma...'

'...la jaquima...'

"...hackamore.'

The hackamore had begun to be woven into European horse culture


Adapting Tradition

The Moorish-Andalusian hakma was simply a noseband, braided of whatever plaiting material came to hand, and used on camels. When Arabs began handling horses, they adopted this simple handling device for their thin-skinned, hot-blooded horses.

Whether it was the hakma, the disciplined fury of the Moor's tactics, or the great speed and quickness of the little desert horses, the Spanish horse troops were no match for their North African opponents.

Along with centuries of practice with the hakma, the Moors brought with them to Spain a riding style that used a shorter stirrup and more forward position than the Spanish were used to. They called it “a la jinete” (“on the shoulder”).

The Moors were rather benevolent absolute rulers, and over the 800 years that they ruled Spain, their subjects learned a great deal from them. It was a two-way exchange in which the Spanish provided the palate-style bits. The blending of these two horse cultures laid the groundwork for the sequence of hackamore/two-rein/bridle use that would become the hallmark of the American reinsman.

New World, New Methods

In 1536, when the conquistadores reached what would come to be called the American West, the demands placed on working horses immediately began to change. They went from being cavalry troopers to cow headers, and along the way, the Spanish war saddle grew a serious horn and thicker, but not wider, swells. The hakma developed into the jaquima, bosal, and bosalito, the bits grew more refined and varied, and the spectacular feats of horsemanship that grew out of wartime needs were transferred to grizzly roping and brushpopping. (See sidebar, A Buckaroo's Hackamore Glossary.)

Back in Old Spain, a similar process took place as the role of the war horse evolved into the vaquero's herding horse, and the flash-reined rejoneador's bullring mount. The latter practice is the exact point of correspondence between the riding of Old and New Spain, the disciplines of classical dressage and reinsmanship. In Spain itself, the sequence for developing the finished horse started with the cavesón (cah-VEY-sohn), better known today as the cavesson. Just as in the New World, a form of the two-reins came next, and the horse was finished straight up in the bridle.

The parallels continue in the modern era. Although Spain has perhaps been more successful at retaining a less-altered form of its traditional horsemanship, there is also a competition, called doma vaquera, that is approximately the parallel of U.S. stock horse contests. (See the resources below for further information on Doma Vaquera.) Thus, the hackamore used on today's reined cow horses has, in essence, been woven over centuries.

As you can see, the hackamore used in today's reined cow horse competition has a rich history of its own. For tips on effective use of the hackamore, watch for future articles on the Training Stages page of DownTheFence.com. Purveyors of fine hackamores, mecates and other traditional equipment can be found on Where To Buy.