16/09/2023
About nosebands and cavessons…
Pamela has decided that it’s time to turn her life around. We’ve been quietly applauding her efforts because, well, it’s never too late for any of us, right? It's easy to head ourselves down the wrong path.
A lot of what’s been helping our teenaged race horse has been in the way of encouraging the mare to shed stress. Rather than winding herself up tighter and tighter, she is allowed to stop and drop her manure, to stop and rub her nose on her knee, anything rather than press on. She is learning that she is not always ‘ten minutes late’ and that it’s okay to stop, take a big sigh and think about life.
Some of us would do well to join her but that’s a whole other story.
This ‘allowing’ and encouraging the mare to release and self-sooth is really showing up while in the bridle, too. During her last ride, Pamela often had her tongue hanging eight inches or so from her mouth. She’s slurp up her tongue and then yawn and yawn and yawn, before dropping her tongue out, again. All throughout, she was trotting along and guiding nicely.
I know for a fact that there are people who would have put a cavesson on her, ‘before that tongue got to be a problem’.
Here’s the thing. Man or beast, if we can’t sigh, yawn, or breathe deeply, we are going to panic. Too many of us are riding horses who cannot—who are literally not allowed to—due to the snugness of their nosebands on their bridles. If my horse cannot keep his mouth closed while working, I want to know this! I need to know this, so that I can figure out why.
While cavessons are a safety issue on such things as driving bridles—they keep the cheekpieces and blinkers close to the horse’s head—they are not necessary for most of recreational riding or horse sport. Yet, a look in most any tack shop will show that the standard English headstall now comes with a crank noseband. If I show my horses in a flat, ordinary, old-fashioned cavesson with the standard two-finger adjustment for looseness, there will always be many comments on how unusual this is, any more!
“Old school!” they wink and comment, as though I’m hopelessly out to lunch and too cheap to get on trend.
Before anyone tells me to chuck the bit entirely, we need to know that bitless bridles can do much the same thing, due to the pressure points they put upon the horse’s head. Best thing to do is take a good look, either through a trusted set of eyes from the ground or with pictures and videos, really concentrating on how the horse is holding his or her lips while at work. Is the mouth relaxed into a soft half-smile, or is the horse pursing his mouth with the top lip prominent? Are the eyes and ears showing soft relaxation?
So, our horses’ tension and ability to release can be hindered, no matter the headgear with which we choose to ride.
The bit shown here has been an experiment for me, one I saw online and decided to try with my green horses who show obvious discomfort in jointed (even French link) snaffles. There are more horses who feel this way, than many of us would care to admit.
Dubbed ‘the missing link snaffle’, this brainchild of western horseman Pat Puckett features a hand-forged snaffle with a copper cricket in the mouthpiece, right where the joint(s) would be. So far, I’m impressed. My colts and those older ones having ‘restarts’ are really using the roller to release tension and find calm comfort, instead. If you’re interested, the bit is available online at www.thedisciplinedride.com.
In the bottom picture (and you might have to tap on the photo to see the entire image), Pamela’s ‘coin purse’ lower lip and soft eye are telling us that she is starting to figure this new lifestyle out, a little bit. Yes, I want soft acceptance and quiet mouths in my horses as they carry their bridles and go to work for me… but I don’t want to muzzle their emotions, or mask their ability to tell me their truth. No. Never that.
Most days, I say no to the noseband.
***
There are some pictures of how Pamela is working, in the comments. Cheers, Lee.
