Hackamore

Bitless headgear that works through pressure on the nose and jaw. Some designs add leverage and are not automatically milder than a bit.

Shop listings blur it further: a plain sidepull noseband gets marketed as a hackamore too, so the word on a box does not say by itself which design is inside. Among the ones that actually work through the nose and jaw rather than a mouthpiece, what separates the mild from the severe is leverage. A bosal hackamore has none: it is a rawhide noseband that signals through a shift in balance rather than a pull. A mechanical hackamore looks similar at a glance but carries metal shanks and a curb strap under the chin, so the rein works through leverage exactly as a curb bit's does, and can be just as severe, or worse, despite having no bit in the mouth at all.