The sporting life

[glenatron]

Tomorrow evening will be the first dressage competition for Team Iris. I'm pretty confident it will go well, given all the things we have in our favour:

• I have had to borrow a bridle because I always take the nosebands off mine because they look silly with western gear and then I lose them.
• Turns out the bridle I have borrowed is actually black, with

Comments

[joycemocha]

Yeah. The only real purpose I can see for nosebands is to keep from pulling a ring snaffle through the mouth (could have used one with my first Shetland as a kid....). Well, and avoiding opening the mouth for resistance (ergo, cranking it down). I'm not a big fan of attached nosebands, myself. Luckily it's pretty easy to find nosebandless headstalls around here.

My separate cavason noseband is hard to find because it only comes in small, medium and large sizes--you can't adjust it tighter than is needed to fit it over the nose and lips. Perfect.

That said, there are some horses who do seem to go better in various gimmicky nosebands--the biggest one I think of is a roman-nosed Appaloosa who did much better in a grackle-type noseband. But she was a short-necked, fine-coated, wispy-maned athletic tank of a jumping fool of a mare, who much preferred to take a long, strong distance if you weren't right on top of her. Truffi was one of the few horses I've seen who would jump obstacles for fun in turnout. But she was also wound pretty darn tight. Not a beginner ride at all. Too hot.

[glenatron]

I think there is a use for some types of noseband ( maybe a grackle? ) to reduce the chance of the horse breaking their jaw if they land face-first from a jump, so they have a place in eventing and on the hunting field, but I don't see any use for them in dressage and reading a big old article about them on eurodressage was like an amazing and surprising cavalcade of people with no understanding of why a horse doesn't accept the bit.