What is a Tom thumb bit?
Like I said above there is only three TTs(Tom Thumbs). There are many western bits that hold the name but are not TTs. Again this goes back to Marketing. They list anything with a jointed mouth piece and a western shank as a TT to make people think of it as mild and because humans like to group things. There is only one true western TT and that is the bit I’m talking about. Oddly enough when they group these other bits as a TT, normally pushing someone to buy a longer shanked one for control after the horse blows through the TT they are giving them a milder bit in most cases. The TT is bad by design. It has short STRAIGHT shanks. If there is a longer shank or a good curve in it or anything but a single jointed mouth piece it isn’t a TT and by design is probably the better bit(but might not be right for the case).
