| October 2005 Issue | |||||||||||||||||
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Friday, 16 May 2008
| The Mute Horse |
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OCTOBER 2005 • HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine Cavessons have become a tool to take control over horses, a tool that takes away any of their choices. They take away their voice. We encourage all riders to read this article and the next on the infraorbital nerve, before ever deciding again to tighten up the cavesson. To the welfare of the horse. Just recently I was looking through one of the premier dressage magazines and what do we see but a top rider gently kissing his horse on the forehead. And one might think how incredible, how sweet, how this rider loves his horse. But then we take a second look and we see this incredibly wide cavesson. A cavesson built up in ways they never were twenty-five years ago. No one then ever worried about having a padded cavesson. Why would it have to be padded? Subscribe to HORSES For LIFE Magazine to read this passionate article on why the change to a padded cavesson on the bridle and to get full access to the exclusive and educational monthly articles in every Issue, as well as, the Past Issues Archive, prepared to serve as your resource center! For the Instructor, For the rider, For the Horse. Horses For LIFE HORSES FOR LIFE™ Please note all resources presented are © copyright protected by the original owners and reprinted with permission OR © Copyright Horses For Life™ 2005 Please write to us! We would love to hear what you think. You can write to us on our contact page or email your letter to the editor directly at letters@horsesforlife.com
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Cavessons have changed tremendously in the past few decades. Perhaps it is time to ask why? Why is it necessary to have a padded cavesson on a bridle? When the masters of the past seemed to do quite well without them.
When we look at the bits used by those that riders that we now call classical riders of the past, we do have to wonder. We see bits with shanks that are so long you wonder at the incredible power of them. But even with bits that strong, do you realize these riders never discussed the need for making sure their horse's mouths were kept shut? 
