Custom bridle.

[5]

If they were made to fit one horse with one bit would they even have buckles aside from the throatlatch?

Assuming the bits were sewn in and the bridle was measured to fit the horse. Cleaning around the bit probably would have been done with a pipecleaner or piece of yarn.


I've never remembered seeing pictures of a bridle like that but if it was truley made to fit why would it need buckles? (perhaps the caveson but you would not see that)

Anyone come across something like that in museums or estate sales?

[Seal Harbor]

Because leather stretches. Reins and bits can be removed and re-sewn and probably were in a time when there were more leather workers. Stitching rots over time and needs to be re-done. OR the whole mess unbuckled from the headstall and a new bit and set of reins buckled to it. The width of the cheeks was/is the same width on hunt bridles as it is today.

Those bridles don't have to be custom fitted.

[Good Old Sledge]

There are lots of old bridles without buckles - except for the throat latch. As suggested, though, the more common way to acheive this look is to have he buckles on the crown to allow some adjustment of the length of the cheek. Another technique is to have buckles on the cheeks, but still sew the bit into those cheekpices and the reins. Claning the bit was not much of a consideration as most of the folks who had these bridle also had someone else to clean them.
There was a time when it was thought, as Crascredo wrote, "nothing is uglier than buckles on a bridle." The tack, in Edwardian times anyway, was to have been tailored specifically for your horse the way your coat was tailored for you. This sensibility is preserved in Corinthian (appointment) classes where the bit is expected to be sewn into the bridle.

[paint hunter]

Slightly off topic from this thread, but what was the rationale for having the bit sewn onto the cheek and rein pieces? I known in Corinthian classes this was/is done. I remember in my far younger days (>30 years ago) buying a used bridle from someone who had been a top H/J shower and the cheeks were sewn in. I guessed she used it for Corinthian classes.

Knowing that show ring hunters descended from the hunting field (albeit far removed today, and that concept has been beaten to death elsewhere on the boards so let's skip that discussion here), I figured the reins and bit were sewn in for strength. Hook studs can break easily, not something you want to have happen if you are at a gallop after the hounds heading for a huge stone wall follwed by a drop....

[Good Old Sledge]

Having the cheeks and reins sewn in suggests that the bridle was bespoke for that horse. Just as a custom hacking jacket is likely to look better than one "off the peg," a bridle made for one horse is likely to look better than a "one size fits most." Buckles are a convenience, like velcro on clothing, and therefore considered a bit "common" by some (like velcro on clothing).
This goes back a hundred years or so when price was not so much an object for the leisure class and it was not unheard of to have 10 horses each with an individual bridle. Sassoon even mentions one gentleman who got a new pair of boots made every hunt season.
Precious few of us have that kind of money these days, but we foxhunters do love tradition and if we can dress up one horse as correctly as possible, you may be sure we will! And we'll enter a Corinthian class to show it all off.