Flash Nose Bands

[sineadkelleher]

Hi Elaine, I was just wondering what your view is in relation to Flash nosebands. Star and myself are hunting at the moment and although we have been practicing our halts and backups etc I do find she gets very keen in the hunting field.

I don't mind her keeness at all and I have been just riding her in a happymouth bit but she does open her mouth out hunting which can make her a bit more difficult to control.

I was considering putting a flash noseband on with her happymouth bit (not too tight) that would stop her opening her mouth too much etc. I also use my seat and other 'natural' aids but would like your view (or anyone else's) on using the flash.

Thanks in advance!

[caroline]

I'm a "non-Natural Horsemanship follower", so I'm sure most of you on this forum will disagree with my views.

Brakes are absolutely crucial out hunting - Safety is paramount! If you don't have fairly decent brakes you could put yourself and other riders in danger. My horse is very strong, but I hunt him in a pelham and I have reasonably good brakes.

I would DEFINITELY use a flash on her. And make sure both the cavesson and flash strap are tight enough - Otherwise it'll just be ineffective.

[Elaine]

I agree safety first always too. I'm away this week but I'll have a think about it

[Elaine]

Ok, have been thinking.

Number 1 as previously said, safety is the most important factor, so is a short term solution while we figure out a way to retrain Star then go for the flash. Its never good to make an unauthorised dash up the hunting field! ´

This masks the problem but doesn´t solve it - i.e. take off the flash and you´ll still have the issue.

Basically when you ride a horse anywhere, every single second you need to be in control of three tnings:

1. speed
2. direction
3. destination

So for example, speed - if your horse is doing a slow walk in the arena and you wanted a more energetic walk, then ok your horse is walking, but he is doing his walk. You are not in control of the speed in this situation. (it´s only a small thing but you are still not in control of the speed which to the horse is a big thing)

Direction ... ever been working in an arena or field, and you find your horse keeps ending up near the gate? The hrose actually decided to go over to teh gate 5, 10, maybe 15 steps previously, and cos you weren´t in control of the direction at that moment, you didnt catch the thought, so it became an action (which takes more effort than a thought to stop) and soon enough you´re over at the gate again.

Destination - if you want your horse to stop now, he must stop now. So it doesn´t mean when you ask for a immeditae stop, it takes your horse 3, 5 or 8 steps. It means stop ´NOW´ before you get run over by a bus. Thats how the famous ohrase ´stay with me baby there´s a bus coming´ws coined

So.. so for retraining, you could start to work on 2 and 3 and fine tune them (we´ll see how good your halt is from walk, trot & canter.. you should be able to go from canter - trot but also canter - halt if there´s a bus coming)

We can figure out destination too and work on figuring out when star thinks of the gate and if we can catch the though..

And then speed..... we need to get this perfect..

slow walk
normal walk
fast walk
slow trot
normal tror
fast trot
slow canter
normal canter
fast canter

and then mix them up:

normal walk to slow canter
slow canter to fast trot
fast trot to normal walk
normal walk to slow trot
slow trot to fast canter

etc etc etc

And then.............. not only do we need to get these good, we need to get these VERY good at home.. I heard somewhere that if you want your horse to be 100% when out, you need to train him to be 300% for everything at home.

Once thats done, we could maybe borrow another horse & rider and throw that into the mix... looking for the same level of skill in speed, direction & destination with the other rider galloping off various places and doing other things.

Basically its to work on leadership and give Star comfort when she listens to you.. and I know she´s come on HEAPS regarding listening to you and not zoning out over the past few months... anyway...!

I´m sure I´ll have more ideas as well... anyone else with a strong horse when out who retrained the horse .. what did you do & how did you get on?

[caroline]

But no matter how well some horses are schooled, they can't all be ridden in a snaffle!

[Elaine]

Sorry, should have said I know the horse in question so its something we can definitely work on.

About no matter how well some horses are schooled, they can´t be ridden in a snaffle..... mmmmm.... what kind of schooling would they have already had? What kind of stuff would have been already tried?

Has the horse been retrained to give to the bit and doesn´t lean on it EVER now, and still this issue has not improved at all?

Or was the issue the other horses being around and the horse not wanting to listen to the rider any more and so he decides to follow the other horses?

You probably cant ride all horses in a snaffle, but then again there are an infinite amount of ways you can try to train a horse to ride´like this, so like anything training horses you just keep going through ideas til you hit on one that works for your horse. And unfortunately you might have to go through a HELL of a lot of ideas.

So basically I dont know, but I´d be interested in hearing of any others who had his issue and fixed it. Maybe there are a few with which the cause of this is purely a training issue (not health or pain related) and they are impossible to retrain. .. Actually, that´d be a great one to bring to the Mark Rashid clinic in Dublin in July 2009. Now if anyone had a solution to this problem, he´d have it, or give it a good stab. He has trained a hell of a lot of horses and is pretty amazing at identifying the cause and fixing issues.

[Elaine]

And to add, you´re probably right Caroline!

[intouch]

Have you thought of trying him in a bitless? Surprisingly, many horses that tank off in a bit respond much better in a bitless. We have one ex eventer pony who was almost unstopable in a bit, who now can be ridden without a bridle. (although we've not tried hunting!)

[intouch]

You'll keep us up to date on that MR clinic, won't you Elaine!

[Elaine]

Yep - early July in Festina Lente I heard on the grapevine, so can´t wait!!!

[galskap]

Hello there

Since you asked for peoples opinions, I'd like to launch my view on this, hoping that I offend no one! I'll start with saying that fully I respect other peoples choice of equipment and methods. This is the (current) result of my own learning process...

I never ever put a flash noseband on a horse or anything that ties the mouth shut, or ties the head down – not even as a short term solution. The reason for this you can see if you try the following:

Clench your teeth hard together. Do it for a while. Try and clench and unclench them and see what it does to your breathing. You will probably find that your breathing gets shallow and that it gets "stuck" in the chest. Try consciously breathing shallowly into your chest for a while, and see how you feel afterwards. Likely you will find that you tense the upper part of the body, becoming ungrounded and slightly off balance. Not exactly a relaxation technique!

To contrast, stand for a minute relaxed (unclench the jaw!), and allow your breath to come all the way into your abdomen, letting your chest expand in deep slow breaths. Feels better?

Now, keep your teeth clenched hard and go for a good run, jog up and down the road for ten minutes, and see how you feel. If you haven't hyperventilated, you might find that your neck and shoulders feel awfully stiff! This is because, when the jaw muscles tense up, so does the neck muscles, all the way down to the shoulder blades. The muscles in this part of the body is closely connected!

In the horse, tension in the jaw and neck often reverbrates all the way down the spine, so that a horse with a tense jaw often carries lots of tension in the tail as well. Try lifting your horses tail up (carefully so you don't get kicked!) It should be no problem to lift the tail up nearly vertically from the horse. If the tail is tense he will clamp it down when you try to lift it. And if the tail is tense, you can be quite sure that the jaw will be too.

Of course tension around the spine can be potentially very damaging for a horse in that it increases the risk of back problems and injuries. It tires the horse quicker, and can produce pain and discomfort which will make the horse less safe to ride.

Also, I think it is important for a horse to be able to lick and chew, and yawn; especially on long days out such as hunting! If the horse is able to yawn and stretch his neck every now and then it will actually help him to stay calm. Licking and chewing helps produce endorphins that calms the nervous system, and it releases tensions effectively.

But of course there is another side of the coin. It's paramount to have 100% control when you ride, especially in a hunting situation with lots of speed and many other riders around. I'm not advertising just whipping of the flash and going for a hunt with the issues that you mention.

You say she opens her mouth against the bit. This is a problem. It will still be there, even if you put on a flash. The flash can be a quick-fix solution, but in the long term it will only make her stronger, and you will still have the problem that she does not yield to the pressure of the reins.

In other words; when you put pressure on the bit, she does not respect it by slowing down; instead, she tries to "go through it" by putting an equal amount of pressure on by bracing against it.

Try and think about other situations where you are together. Is there any other times this happens? When you have her in a lead rope; does it ever happen that you pull at the lead rope but she pulls the other way? Or that she leans against you when you put pressure on to move her or to pick up a foot? Or if you pull a left rein, will she ever go against it by pushing to the right?

This is pieces of the same problem, being that the horse has learnt that it is more effective to brace against pressure - (opening the mouth and pulling back) than yield to it (slowing down). Most horses will naturally yield easily to pressure - it's their instinct, being prey animals! The problem comes when people, unthinkingly, puts lots of pressure on them without providing them with the opportunity and space to yield to it.

There is plenty of groundwork exercises to help with this, Elaine has them quite brilliantly described... also I recommend Bill Dorrance's book True Horsemanship Through Feel for it's thorough explanations of the value and how-to of groundwork, and how the groundwork applies to riding issues.

The reason I personally would not use the flash even as a short-term solution is that I believe it creates a hardness and resistance in the horse that is counter to what I wish to produce in the long term – softness and obedience to a light hand. I would rather skip the hunting altogether until I could control my horse without compromising him. (This is why you don't find Intinn and me on the hunting fields – we havent gotten there – yet!) Again, however, this is my personal opinion, and next time you go out hunting, stay safe and enjoy!!

[amanda1066]

Jan 4, 2009 18:23:39 GMT galskap said:

You say she opens her mouth against the bit. This is a problem. It will still be there, even if you put on a flash. The flash can be a quick-fix solution, but in the long term it will only make her stronger, and you will still have the problem that she does not yield to the pressure of the reins.

I know little about the effect of flash nosebands tbh but if the horse is opening it's mouth 'against the bit' I don't see what difference it makes to keep the mouth shut unless the bit is a snaffle and the horse is opening it's mouth to avoid the pressure on the roof of it's mouth...
I tend to feel as galskap does, but couldn't begin to put a case as well.

[Elaine]

A quick update on this one At Steve's clinic he remarked that a horse can be 'leaving / mentally running away' even when they are just at a walk. So if you ask your horse to do halt > FQ yield and they do halt > FQ yield > walk they can be mentally somewhere else. Also previously Sean helped out on this one with some practical exercises which you can do when out on a hack. Both (Sinead can confirm) were very useful and are definitely working well Not a flash in sight!