25/08/2025
The first time I wrote about nosebands and cavessons—and how I prefer to leave them at a) the tackstore and failing that b) the high and inaccessible bridle hook in the tackroom—was back in 2018:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19mFsU5tEE/
The second time, I wrote a lengthy piece called, ‘Cavessons or Nosebands, Yea or Nay?’ back in 2022:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CpQcgRjj1/
So, this movement towards getting rid of the mouth shutters is in no way new. While I do ride in the rawhide bosal, also—and it does prevent some of the huge releasing of the jaw, if it is adjusted correctly—I’m pretty much against using cavessons, unless I’m driving a horse.
Driving bridles REQUIRE a cavesson to safely hold the cheekpieces of the bridle against the horse’s face. To remove the noseband means that you are risking ‘peekaboo’ glimpses of the carriage in a bad moment, if your horse ever really needs hanging onto. So, a warning might be in order, depending on what you are planning to do.
I have always espoused ditching the cavesson for riding, for as long as I have been schooling horses, which goes back to my youth, when we called those little rawhide nosebands—de rigueur in stock horse training pens—mouth shutters. Yes. Here's another post from 2018:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16aeutqZUo/
There is a reason western performance events do not allow a cavesson of any kind in competition, nor have they ever, to the best of my knowledge. They cover too many sins.
We should want to see what the horse is saying about our bridle, our bitting, our schooling and our rein handling! We should want to see if there is tension, fear, pain or happy acceptance. Shouldn’t we?
Note that many bitless bridles are no better than bitted bridles, when it comes to allowing full releases of the jaw. So, going without a bit does not necessarily mean that your horse is feeling more relaxed. We will have to find other reasons to make these choices, hopefully, on grounds and aims that are guided by the horse.
Some horses will absolutely go through a period of sticking the tongue out, crossing the jaws, getting the tongue over the bit or gaping the mouth, even without any action of the reins. This is normal and will most often resolve itself as the horse gets busier—aka more active—with the hind end. Mouth issues are almost always fixed by concentrating on the opposite end of the horse.
This, of course, is Lyric… a six-year-old Friesian x Haflinger pony cross. She’s still quite green, as we have started and stumbled through our training for quite some time. With each newly-revealed problem—from bucking to bolting—we’ve uncovered physical issues and for the first time in the three years that I have known her, Lyric and I are facing what seems to be smooth sailing.
I’ll have you know that this state of uncomplicated wellness comes as a blessed relief!
The pony is not built for lightness but she is proving to be athletic in the way of large people who are beautiful, light-footed dancers. She is learning to release stress in a more beneficial way, than of blowing up, entirely. This, too, comes as a relief, especially to her ageing jockey!
We ride in as uphill a way as her schooling and physical body currently allow, taking our puff breaks with an entirely loose rein. Her yawns are so huge that she cannot walk while doing them; she stops and puts everything she’s got into releasing her tension.
I can only imagine what it would feel like, in her nervous system and in her physical body, through her breathing, the poll and TMJ, if she were unable to release in this way.
Even if you are forced to wear a cavesson to compete with, I say there is a huge argument for allowing your horses to find total relaxation without them, while you are doing your daily schooling. A few days of riding with a loosely-fastened noseband before you show should be enough to acclimatise your horses… and if not, I would question whether such horses are really ready to compete.
And yet, cavessons—the cranks, flashes, figure-eights and dropped nosebands—continue to be allowed and are sold with every single English bridle that is made. If they were sold separately, many people likely wouldn’t bother putting one on their horses, despite the continued teaching that cavessons are somehow necessary to making a compliant, submissive horse, or ‘stabilizing’ the bit in the mouth.
While many of our dressage gods, past and present, have made use of the dropped noseband while schooling the horse in the snaffle, I question their necessity. Having a western stock horse background has shed some light for me on the whole concept of yielding coming from physical or mechanical constraint. I am no longer a believer, I guess.
Nosebands aside, there is so much of the gear we regularly use on our horses that actually makes the job of improving their bodies, way of going and wellness so much more difficult. Standing martingales/tie downs, splint boots and bandages (bell boots and skid boots can be necessary protection, as needed), any sort of ‘auxiliary’ reins that use mechanical means to force a horse into position, lungeing ‘systems’ meant to engage the hind end…
I’m not buying them. I’m not interested in short-term goals and long-term, they have proven to be more hindrance, than help.
Photos: Kerry Duncan McCartney.
