Tight nosebands - response from a British Dressage judge
BD judge: "I agree re nosebands being on too tight. I raise this regularly with BD where others are also concerned about it, ... Having had a horse who has had significant back and other pain I can say his mouth opening / resistance to contact seems to be directly related to how his back is - nothing to do with the bit or mouth. The more pain he is in, the more he opens his mouth / resists the bit. I think that mouth opening / resistance in the mouth is often related to stress, physical or mental. What this means to me is that it is completely wrong to be able to strap a horse's mouth shut; we should be looking for the cause of the problem. I recently emailed BD after a picture of an extremely tight noseband featured in their latest magazine and they were grateful for the feedback ...
Unfortunately I disagree on performance. A lot of horses seem to work very well with their mouths strapped shut. I see this often when writing or judging at dressage competitions. I have even seen it [on the winner of a National competition] last April where I felt the noseband was tight to the point of almost certain discomfort. Personally, I was drawn to the mouth and would have marked it down but the judges had this horse as the clear winner. As yet, at least, as judges, we are not being trained to consider the tightness of nosebands. On the other hand there are also horses with evident physical problems - stiffnesses, etc who go with a still mouth that isn't strapped shut!
I hope these anecdotes are helpful. BD have looked at a way of checking whether the nosebands is too tight - someone invented a handy device that would control against the size of fingers (e.g. should you be able to measure fit by, say, one finger's width being allowed inside) ..."
My response: "Thank you very much for your feedback. It's good to know that there is concern about this at the level of judging. Unfortunately on the performance side of things there is no way of knowing how well those horses could go without their mouth / nose strapped shut - my guess would be that ultimately they have the potential to go even better than they currently are. However, removing the restrictive noseband would of course change things so much for them that they would initially go less well, I'm sure, and so it would be a study that would be virtually impossible to carry out (for many reasons)."
BD judge: "Yes I agree horses could / should go better without their mouths strapped shut. I guess they are just all different and at the moment in judging you can neglect the mouth because it is strapped shut. It would be interesting to judge a class then judge the same class with nosebands removed! "
My response: "I suspect that the horse's behaviour would not be ideal initially with the nosebands removed because they would be better able to express their opinions! A client of mine did her college study on dressage tests with bits and then in bitless bridles, I think it was 3 combinations of horse and rider judged with bit and then without on one day, and then without followed by with on the next day. The results were inconclusive, but of course changing a horse's normal tack would be likely to lead to a lower score unless they'd been schooled extensively in both sets of tack, I would think. It's a good start though."
A recent comment of mine in a HHH e-newsletter prompted several responses full of emotion. The conversation below is between myself and a British Dressage judge in relation to this subject.
My initial comment: "I'm feeling quite distressed about the amount of horses whose jaws are jammed shut with what I consider to be excessive nosebands, along with a considerable amount of metal in their mouths. I've seen so many times the dramatic changes to a horse's comfort levels and way of going when I work to free up his tongue and jaw muscles, that the opposite must be true - if you fix his jaw or his tongue, you reduce his ability to perform. I need to read more around this so that I can produce an article on it - the anecdotal evidence is clear to me, but I need more! What are your thoughts?"
BD judge: "I agree re nosebands being on too tight. I raise this regularly with BD where others are also concerned about it, ... Having had a horse who has had significant back and other pain I can say his mouth opening / resistance to contact seems to be directly related to how his back is - nothing to do with the bit or mouth. The more pain he is in, the more he opens his mouth / resists the bit. I think that mouth opening / resistance in the mouth is often related to stress, physical or mental. What this means to me is that it is completely wrong to be able to strap a horse's mouth shut; we should be looking for the cause of the problem. I recently emailed BD after a picture of an extremely tight noseband featured in their latest magazine and they were grateful for the feedback ...
Unfortunately I disagree on performance. A lot of horses seem to work very well with their mouths strapped shut. I see this often when writing or judging at dressage competitions. I have even seen it [on the winner of a National competition] last April where I felt the noseband was tight to the point of almost certain discomfort. Personally, I was drawn to the mouth and would have marked it down but the judges had this horse as the clear winner. As yet, at least, as judges, we are not being trained to consider the tightness of nosebands. On the other hand there are also horses with evident physical problems - stiffnesses, etc who go with a still mouth that isn't strapped shut!
I hope these anecdotes are helpful. BD have looked at a way of checking whether the nosebands is too tight - someone invented a handy device that would control against the size of fingers (e.g. should you be able to measure fit by, say, one finger's width being allowed inside) ..."
My response: "Thank you very much for your feedback. It's good to know that there is concern about this at the level of judging. Unfortunately on the performance side of things there is no way of knowing how well those horses could go without their mouth / nose strapped shut - my guess would be that ultimately they have the potential to go even better than they currently are. However, removing the restrictive noseband would of course change things so much for them that they would initially go less well, I'm sure, and so it would be a study that would be virtually impossible to carry out (for many reasons)."
BD judge: "Yes I agree horses could / should go better without their mouths strapped shut. I guess they are just all different and at the moment in judging you can neglect the mouth because it is strapped shut. It would be interesting to judge a class then judge the same class with nosebands removed! "
My response: "I suspect that the horse's behaviour would not be ideal initially with the nosebands removed because they would be better able to express their opinions! A client of mine did her college study on dressage tests with bits and then in bitless bridles, I think it was 3 combinations of horse and rider judged with bit and then without on one day, and then without followed by with on the next day. The results were inconclusive, but of course changing a horse's normal tack would be likely to lead to a lower score unless they'd been schooled extensively in both sets of tack, I would think. It's a good start though."
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