November 2007 • VOLUME 27 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine

FEI Dressage Additionally Approved Bridle

On the one hand no one wants to appear as if one is continually attacking the FEI, but really, sometimes it is so difficult to understand what is happening.
For example, just recently one of our readers sent us a link to a new approved bridle for Dressage Events.

And it appears as if one more step has been added to the absurdity of it all. When is this going to end? Will there come a time when one’s first reaction is not to drop one's jaw at the next level of absurdity that the FEI condones? It just seems to go on and on.

Last month I received a public announcement from the FEI telling everyone about a new wonderful horse computer game from Atari. I went - I looked and - I was shocked to see that almost every horse is depicted with a drop noseband. So this is the lesson that we want to teach young girls? The thought was there to write an article on this atrocity, but there comes a point you almost think, why bother?

Why bother? Why go through this one more time? Again and again it never seems to end, and it just seems to get worse and worse. There is never an end to it all. You wonder if anyone truly cares.

There was a time when the norm was that you would rarely see a flash or a drop noseband. A time when cavessons came made of plain, simple light leather, not needing any padding, as it never got that close to the horse’s nose anyway. There was a time that it was easier to find and buy a plain cavesson than one with an attachment for a flash. But those days seem well and truly dead and buried. Now try to find a plain and simple cavesson without a flash attachment??!! It appears we have our horses so well trained that we simply cannot do without.

No-one seems to stop and question why it is that so many riders need this flash. It couldn’t be so that the horse couldn’t open his mouth to get away from the bit, could it?

No-one seems to stop and question why it is that so many riders now need a padded cavesson that they need to crank up so tightly that it can take two to undo? Even at the grand prix level, it appears that we really think our horses are so well trained that we really, really need this piece of equipment.

Well, now you can take it one step further. Lucky horses. (Sarcasm intended)

Now you can make sure your horse cannot evade that dang bit, by closing not just his mouth in two places but three!! Isn’t that wonderful?! And yes I am still being sarcastic.

Drum roll please... the newest and approved bridle by the discerning dressage committee of the FEI has not one, not two, but THREE straps that you can tighten to your heart's content.

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