What does “crank” mean?

Question by Peanut Palomino: What does “crank” mean?
I’ve heard of crank nosebands, crank bridles, crank bits, all kinds of things and i don’t know what it means. And i’ve only heard that they are bad. Is that true?

Best answer:

Answer by Liz T
Crank nosebands kind of ratchet together so you can make them very, very tight.

http://sustainabledressage.com/tack/bridle.php#crank

ETA:
Not to pick a fight, here, but I’d have to disagree with the statement that horses need a tight noseband to be on the bit. In fact, a horse doesn’t need ANY noseband to be on the bit. To be on the bit, a horse has to be stretching into contact with engaged hocks and a raised back. A noseband doesn’t even enter the equation- if you need one to strap your horse’s mouth shut to keep contact, you’re hauling way too hard or doing something wrong.

On a tangent, compare modern dressage riders like Anky to Reiner Klimke and look at the difference. If you use “a curled neck” to define on the bit (which is kind of what it has degraded to) you can see why riders like Anky prefer a tight noseband. However, if you look at Reiner Klimke and Ahlerich, you can see just how supple and forward Ahlerich is and you could almost definitely take his noseband off altogether without any resistance from the horse.

In short, crank nosebands mask the problem of heavy hands when they are used incorrectly, which is typically the case.

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