Nosebands- the keyboard warriors weapon

As promised, this blog will by soley on Nosebands as they seem to be a hot topic of conversation. The reason I think animal rights activists use the tightness of nosebands so reguarly as there weapon is because it is so easily measured. You can physically SEE the straps indenting the horses flesh, and unless the noseband is pretty much flapping in the wind; they will produce pressure on the horses nose which is uncomfortable.

I personally use nosebands on all of my horses so am not 'anti' noseband as such, but I do feel there is a happy medium- where the horse can move its jaw around enough to be relaxed but not excessively open the mouth to avoid unwanted Bit pressure (all of which could be avoided by getting the right Bit Fitted ;) ).

One of the conceptions that is not common knowledge is that nosebands DO cause poll pressure when done up tightly (when I say tightly I am referring to not being able to fit 2 fingers between the noseband and the nasal bone of the horse). Because a horses face is shaped like a cone, any noseband/flash done up will pull down on the horses poll. Test this yourself by putting your fingers carefully underneath the horses head peice, then get a friend to do the noseband up and feel the pressure increase, in fact a tight noseband can cause more poll pressure than every leverage Bit can.

The nasal bones are extremely fragile, the horse skull that I use for clinics has the nasal bones wrapped as they can snap off so easily. Unless your noseband is fitted correctly with 1-2 fingers width below the facial crest then it will press on the nasal bones, bearing in mind there is only a thin layer of skin to cover them.

I find the basic hannovarian noseband fits accpetably on most horses, grackles fitted correctly are also kind. Drop nosebands are extremely hard to fit properly without impinging on the flesh, in 99% of pictures of horses wearing these you can see the pressure limiting their breathing. Remember horses cannot breath through their mouth, only their nose so it is extremely important that we do not restrict this.

The horses nerves and blood vessels are delivered through the foreamen, one of these is positioned right below the facial crest- ironically exactly the noseband sit unless you have it 2 fingers width below. The foreamen delivers tear ducts, salivation, tongue movement, nostril movement and so much more.

In a fitting we will use a hannovarian without a flash so the horse can give as much feedback as possible. A horse happy in the mouth will not generally open its mouth, they only open their mouth to avoid unwanted pressure. It is up to the rider whether to chose to put a flash back on when they go home but often it's not needed with a correctly fitted Bit.

Pictured below is my noseband taper gauge to measure the tightness, if the noseband can fit this gauge in, then its FEI legal, if it isn't; then it is inflicting pain and your horses breathing. Every client gets one at the end of a fitting, it's all part of the opportunity to educate and improve the horses welfare.