Flash nosebands ..are they necessary?

New member, first post, can of worms. I can't abide flash nosebands in any shape or form. I don't knowing own one, and would never use one on any horse of mine. Are they a symptom of a long term lack of bitting training? Ride everything with a snaffle, and if the horse opens it's mouth then strap it shut. Why not look at the cause of the problem and ride in a bit that suits the horse? Human feet come in different shapes and sizes and one style does not suit all and isn't expected to, so why should horse's mouths be any different? If you really have to ride in a snaffle, dressage for instance, why not learn how to fit a drop noseband and use that instead.
 
sonicgold said:
New member, first post, can of worms. I can't abide flash nosebands in any shape or form. I don't knowing own one, and would never use one on any horse of mine. Are they a symptom of a long term lack of bitting training? Ride everything with a snaffle, and if the horse opens it's mouth then strap it shut. Why not look at the cause of the problem and ride in a bit that suits the horse? Human feet come in different shapes and sizes and one style does not suit all and isn't expected to, so why should horse's mouths be any different? If you really have to ride in a snaffle, dressage for instance, why not learn how to fit a drop noseband and use that instead.
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Lol.welcome. :) subject of original post is now flash free and happier for it.
My limited experience to date tells me that the way to a riding well and a well behaved horse is not through gadgets.
 
Caol Ila said:
^ This ^

I think there is a fine line between pushing your* horse just hard enough so his fitness and performance improve, and pushing him too hard, to the point that it becomes difficult, frustrating, and tiring, and he starts looking for evasions. At which point, you start correcting the evasions and getting frustrated, which makes the whole riding thing even more unpleasant for the horse, and around and around you go. You add flashes, draw reins, whatever as the horse gets more determined in his evasions. Which might put a band-aid on the problem in question, but don't address the fundamental sourness the horse is developing.

Maybe I am becoming a big softy in my old age, but on the other hand, I have found that my horse's dressage has improved by leaps and bounds when I stopped riding with the attitude of "I will make you do this, because I am the rider, dammit" and instead approach it from a place of softness, empathy, and cooperation. It's a paradigm shift the rider has to make. The horse is already there. I think Mark Rashid and Buck Branneman, for instance, are spot on when they make the argument that the horse is hardwired to cooperate and to move with his herdmates. Mark talks about watching a herd of horses galloping and how easily they synchronise with one another. So with this in mind, I assume that the horse's "default setting" is cooperation and sensitivity, but of course, this is dependent on its humans being able to communicate with it. When I see a horse expending a hell of a lot of energy into fighting his rider, I assume that something has gone wrong with the communication, whether it is with that person or a previous rider, and the horse needs to fight and be "naughty" in order to defend itself and express its confusion.

And that is why I think flashes do nothing, other than mask a deeper problem and serve as useful water bottle hanging straps.

*"your" and "you" being the universal you, not anyone in particular on this thread.
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What a brilliant post. I'd like to print this out and keep it in my tack box. I have been avoiding fitting a flash to my horse for ages and now I feel vindicated. :D
 
Pootleperkin, you're pushing the horse hard and he is complaining. Ok so you expect him to work, and he is, but is he not allowed an opinion? Let him complain. You say he'll stop complaining when he's fitter. So, you don't need a flash noseband you need a fitter horse.
 
Think we had already covered this Sugar and Spice...... plus I'm not pushing him *that* hard - maybe it came across differently in my post. We are talking 30 minutes of mainly walk and trot, with a little lateral work and lots of stretching in between. At 30 mins plus, we are usually starting to cool down, because he has started to tell me he needs to stop - I do listen, honest! :) As the instructor travels from a long way away, we usually school for slightly longer than I would at home, but use the coooling down constructively too.

It sounds as if you think I am being mean to him - of course he is allowed an opinion - he's my baby boy and I'm the first to look after him, hence I don't use gadgets and questioned my instructors opinion that he needed a flash! :)
 
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I had a pair of them once too QB - quite useful in the tack room to hang rugs off, like washing lines!

On a more serious note, I went out and schooled in the field this evening and I had a beautifully relaxed, supple horse whose only evasion tonight was doing a very big spook at a bird in a tree (how unexpected!). And yes, he is getting fitter - hurray (down a girth hole too!)
 
Pootleperkin I don't think you're being mean to him, I think your instructor is in wanting to strap his mouth shut. It frustrates me when people want to do that. But my frustration isn't aimed at you, sorry if it seemed that way. I've just had a long day and I'm now grumpy. And yes, the person above, whose post I didn't read before I posted mine (my bad), puts it much better than me. You come across as knowledgable, so I'm sure you're not working him into the ground. A bit of work does them no harm, they have the other 23hrs of the day to do what they like.

Mostly flash nosebands seem to me to be used by people who can't keep their hands still (not aiming this at anyone on here) and who don't like to see the horse opening its mouth in protest. They are often fitted badly and although they occasionally have a valid use, they mostly should be put in a pile and burned.
 
Well, when my little horse started her more serious work I spent a long time searching for a nice leather bridle without a flash (absolutely did NOT want one) and in fact found just the thing. Sadly the company who made it do not seem to be around any more....... do you think its because they did not make bridles with flash nosebands???

I compete at Trec and we have to ride with a headcollar /combination bridle on the map reading section, I use a brilliant synthetic combination bridle, its really smart, everyone comments on it, at Trec or just hacking, the headcollar part becomes the "noseband" visually but just sits there loosely. I can't imagine how uncomfy a horse must feel if he/she had to wear bridle with noseband + flash + headcollar!

Isn't it amazing how much controversy a narrow 10" piece of leather with a small buckle and few holes can arouse. Do you think there will be hundreds strewn around the country side tomorrow morning as the newly converted chuck them away?? Or will they perhaps put them to use for some of the more "interesting" purposes previously mentioned?
 
J&S said:
Isn't it amazing how much controversy a narrow 10" piece of leather with a small buckle and few holes can arouse. Do you think there will be hundreds strewn around the country side tomorrow morning as the newly converted chuck them away?? Or will they perhaps put them to use for some of the more "interesting" purposes previously mentioned?
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Lots of great alternative suggestions. Never know when a nice leather strap could come in useful :D
 
I like to clip the car keys to mine when I go out for a ride ... or sometimes I use the martingale strap instead to stop it feeling left out :D

Swapped the flash for a drop a few weeks ago and the boy seems to prefer it. Hopefully one day it'll be replaced with a caverson but not yet! :rolleyes:
 
Tried Conn without his tonight and wow, it made no difference, I thought he was either going to become his racehorse inner demon or valegro but no, still my bucking donkey except I think he looks better with the flash on *facepalm*
 
Cheers Sugar and Spice - nice to know you don't really think I'm a gadget loving, flash-strap hugger! Hope you are feeling fresher now :)

I guess my original post came out of the fact that I *didn't* want to strap my horse's mouth shut either, and was wondering why someone would, especially with a flash.

I find it interesting that my instructor, who is vastly experienced (from a dressage background) did want to do so. Plus the little girl in me always wants to defer to authority and do what I'm told! It's good that the big, ugly, slightly more grown up person doesn't and will ask questions or refer to my own knowledge! I think it is interesting as she knows how fit he is, knows that when we have a lesson it is one of his slightly 'harder' exercise sessions, and yet rather than realise that he wasn't as settled in his mouth as usual because he was getting tired, instead she looked to stop him from doing it. I guess it's explained either by different schools of thought (which I think might be the case), or not thinking as much :)
 
Just because someone has the designation "riding instructor" does not mean that their philosophy is in line with mine, or that they know more than I do. I've seen plenty of instructors slap martingales, flashes, chambones, harsher bits, etc. on horses when that would not be my chosen solution. My sense of it is that these things are often standard practice (like every dressage bridle, ever, coming with a flash). It's how they learned to ride and when they become instructors themselves, it's what they pass on to their students. At least in the places I have kept my horse since moving to the UK, the "horse-centered" approach, what I described in my last post on this thread, is extremely uncommon.

When I ride, my horse opens her mouth whenever I start hanging off the inside rein, which is a terrible habit I've been trying to break. Especially on the left rein. That hand will not behave! It's so absentminded that often, I only notice when Gypsum stiffens on that side and opens her mouth. Communication is a two-way street. "Let go of the left rein, you bloody moron." She closes her mouth and relaxes when I do.
 
I have that heavy left hand problem too. My horse is a little stiffer to the left, I am left handed so use it harder than I either should or need to. I had lessons with an lovely lady from The Talland some years ago and she taught me to hold the rein in a different manner, with the back of your hand facing down, thumb and forefinger facing forwards and let the rein just run through you hand. You loose the "leverage" factor like this. Now, I use this whenever I feel resistance and it takes the pressure off and the horse softens.

Over the many years of one's riding life, if one is not an instinctively brilliant horseman/woman one needs a "bag of tips and tricks" picked up from the various different instructors, schools of thought that one has come accross.
Strapping the horse up or down should be among the throw away items!
 
Caol Ila said:
Just because someone has the designation "riding instructor" does not mean that their philosophy is in line with mine, or that they know more than I do. I've seen plenty of instructors slap martingales, flashes, chambones, harsher bits, etc. on horses when that would not be my chosen solution. My sense of it is that these things are often standard practice (like every dressage bridle, ever, coming with a flash). It's how they learned to ride and when they become instructors themselves, it's what they pass on to their students. At least in the places I have kept my horse since moving to the UK, the "horse-centered" approach, what I described in my last post on this thread, is extremely uncommon.

When I ride, my horse opens her mouth whenever I start hanging off the inside rein, which is a terrible habit I've been trying to break. Especially on the left rein. That hand will not behave! It's so absentminded that often, I only notice when Gypsum stiffens on that side and opens her mouth. Communication is a two-way street. "Let go of the left rein, you bloody moron." She closes her mouth and relaxes when I do.
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Where's the button for loud round of applause! Because I try to ride whenever I'm away I get to meet different instructors with slightly different approaches but the underlying theme has been 'contact..more contact' . I'm not good with the reins as I'm wary of pulling on the horses mouth and like you my left arm also misbehaves. Problem is of course when a horse is used to lots of rein my rather tentative contact gets taken advantage of. However I started having lessons with a French classical instructor recently so I know that it is possible to ride with lighter contact once the horse is trained to it. I would strongly recommend a book by Philippe Karl..twisted truths of modern dressage to anyone, who like me, is not convinced that force is the way forward.
 
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Yes! When I see others getting lessons, the instructors seem to be trying to get the horse "round" through increasingly more contact. And what's with people straightening their elbows and holding their hands firmly below the withers? I'm aware its a bad habit many may suffer, but I don't think it is something to aspire to or worse, something your trainer should be telling you to do, as it is physically impossible to have a soft, following connection with the bit if you ride like this.

I've also been doing my reading on classical dressage, incorporating it with Mark Rashid's philosophy, and muddling along with it on my own. My muddling is still getting better results in terms of my horse actually being engaged and carrying herself than I got with dressage lessons where my instructor demanded more and more contact and then more and more driving aids. My horse is very smart and figured out that the easiest thing to do when the rider hangs on her face is to shuffle along behind the leg. Then the rider (me) ends up nagging her all the time with the leg to go forward and I suppose that is where I could have started saying "This horse is lazy and stubborn." Luckily, I concluded that the horse was fine, I was rubbish, and started the process of changing my riding habits. Result.
 
Side track slightly but spotted in the horsey press last month. Somebody was asking about a martingale for working hunter. The "expert" said that she though jumping without one looked amateurish!! I thought WH was to demonstrate skills found out hunting. If the tame expert had ever seen a horse hooked by it's running martingale ring to a hunting gate latch she would, I think have answered differently. I have seen it and been there. Luckily on neither occasion did the horse panic. Don't use martingales now.
 
TrasaM said:
I would strongly recommend a book by Philippe Karl..twisted truths of modern dressage to anyone, who like me, is not convinced that force is the way forward.
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WOW! I bought it on your recommendation and I'm blown away by it. Tells me exactly why I wasn't happy with how my friend was being taught to train her horse by a major UK name, even though s/he cost £90 a lesson and trains top of the top British riders. And so many other answers. THANKYOU!
 
cptrayes said:
WOW! I bought it on your recommendation and I'm blown away by it. Tells me exactly why I wasn't happy with how my friend was being taught to train her horse by a major UK name, even though s/he cost £90 a lesson and trains top of the top British riders. And so many other answers. THANKYOU!
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I've just been having a look on ebay for a copy - going to wait for someone to advertise a used one. It looks fascinating.
 
It is expensive, £25 on Amazon, but it's also a beautiful book. The pages are thick and glossy, it's very big format, full of diagrams and photos to show you what he means, cartoons to lighten the read, and it even has one of those ribbons bound into it so you can mark your page. You won't be disappointed!

PS. Mine ain't never going to be for sale :D !!
 
I tried a Flash on my Arab.

He can become strong out hacking and wants to race and doesn't see the end of the field as a reason to stop galloping :D

So I tried a flash strap.

He stopped more quickly and I had better brakes.

What happened when he stopped?

He started putting his head down, twisting his body and expressing his excitement by fly bucking instead :D

The energy had to go somewhere - if I supressed it in some way, it would manifest in another.

And he was distressed by it - so it went in the box and never came back out again.

I hate the fact that I can't buy an XFS 'posh' bridle for The Tank without the obligatory flash :mad:
 
cptrayes said:
It is expensive, £25 on Amazon, but it's also a beautiful book. The pages are thick and glossy, it's very big format, full of diagrams and photos to show you what he means, cartoons to lighten the read, and it even has one of those ribbons bound into it so you can mark your page. You won't be disappointed!

PS. Mine ain't never going to be for sale :D !!
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Ok - that's ANOTHER one on my Wishlist :eek:
 
cptrayes said:
WOW! I bought it on your recommendation and I'm blown away by it. Tells me exactly why I wasn't happy with how my friend was being taught to train her horse by a major UK name, even though s/he cost £90 a lesson and trains top of the top British riders. And so many other answers. THANKYOU!
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I'm really pleased that you love it as much as I do. His knowledge and the way he communicates it in a clear and witty way is just lovely. I'm working my way through it again at the moment and like yours mine won't be for sale :D
 
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