Bosal
A stiff rawhide noseband, used in a hackamore, that works on the nose and jaw instead of a bit in the mouth.
A bosal is the reason a horse can be schooled in a hackamore without anything in its mouth at all. It is a braided rawhide noseband, stiff rather than soft, hanging from a headstall and weighted at the back by a knot called the heel butt. The reins are a single length of rope, the mecate, wrapped where the noseband meets the knot. Pressure comes on the nose and under the jaw as the weight shifts, so the signal is a change in balance rather than a pull, and a bosal that has been shaped to a particular horse is not casually moved to another one.
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