What are the purposes of enclosing the horse’s mouth in Dressage or English riding? The employ of a tightened caveson, or flash, or other arrangement of noseband in the riding of the horse has long been purported as necessary to help the horse accept the pressure on the bit. To help develop the horse’s mouth. But what does it truly support?
This leads me to think of an action talked about recently about stopping the horse in a way not necessarily understood as to it’s working but that it does in fact work. To raise one rein upwards and taking the other directly back. It has been rolling through my thoughts unable to pin down exactly what I know it’s usefulness derived from, until yesterday. I was working with my lovely gelding, Tanjobi, when I thought I would experiment with it some. Not using it in quite the same way, while the direction of the reins was the same, the pressure was that of experimental value (read – very light). The action opens the horse’s mouth. It breaks the clenching resistance that comes when a horse attempts to run away with the rider. When the horse locks the mouth, grabs the bit, and runs. It also combines the elevation element inherent to the half halt.
So, Baucher then. Françoise Baucher prescribed a series of suppling exercises for the horse’s mouth while standing still, but primarily what they involve is the softening of the jaw. They emphasize opening of the mouth by the bits position.
I continued to run it through my mind then, the combination of the open mouth with a form of suppling, its connection with the use of a tightened noseband/flash/etc, and also how it can be witnessed that the horse can still run away with the rider and an open mouth.
Dressage horses, for as often as they are emphasized to be light and soft in the mouth, I have found often to be quite heavy. They take a very firm contact on the reins, which supports the use of physical force to then influence them. Could the noseband have an effect on this? Is it that traditionally taught Dressage looks for a horse to take that heavy/firm contact and it is best obtained with a tight noseband, which also hides the open/chewing mouth?
It isn’t uncommon for riders to see-saw the reins, that is pull left to right in an effort to soften the horse’s response to their aids, bring about a more ‘appealing’ head set, and gain some measure of control. This action ‘opens’ the horse’s mouth, whether it can be seen physically or not.
And then the horse who can still bolt and run with a wide open mouth… but is the difference really at the base of the neck? So a horse with an open mouth who has not elevated the base of the neck, is still enabled to run wildly on the forehand and thus subject to the forces of momentum? And a horse with an open mouth and elevation at the base of the neck will find themselves more at liberty to respond at the whim of the rider as their weight becomes more balanced? Very good questions that are still floating in mind.
