The Flash Noseband - The Aachen Cavesson

A flash noseband.

This is a kind of "newish" invention. You hardly saw it before the 80''s. What it is, is a regular english noseband/cavesson commonly used with the double bridle, and attached to it is an extra strap that is supposed to do what the drop cavesson would do - shut the mouth further down towards the mouth. It was "invented" for jumpers, where they wanted the control over the mouth of the dropped cavesson, but to keep the english cavesson part for attaching the standing martingale to. It was later transferred to the warmblood auction scene, where 3 year olds are held up and ridden straight forward stiffly and at over-speed to show off their extravagant paces. It is now frequently the only kind of cavesson you can find on snaffle bridles.

This this is a double bandage, if you will. But one that does not do the job very well.

In a young horse, as in the picture above to the right, the molar teeth (at the sides of the jaw) are a lot bigger compared to the rest of the skull, than in the mature horse (which would be working in the double bridle and its standard english cavesson at his age, anyway). You can see the upper and lower teeth bulging out through the cheeks like two ridges along the side of the face. These are a good reason to use the drop noseband, instead of the flash. The upper cavesson band will press the cheeks towards the teeth if too snugly adjusted, or even loosely adjusted if the horse resists the bit and gapes against the noseband. In a young horse the corners of the mouth can bulge upwards with the rein aids and help with the squeeze. And common are the ulcers and lesions on the insides of the cheeks of horses, young and old. This type of noseband is the main reason for it.

This is also the favourite strap to tighten too much. The horse''s nostrils are soft, and compress as you tighten the strap. When the horse works, the nostrils flare to allow more air in, but as you see in the photo to the left, this strap can constrict the nostrils. A regular drop can, too, of course.

In this crossection of a horse''s head you can see the difference in cheek thickness, and the sharp edge where the upper and lower molars meet at the placement for the regular cavesson (3). Lower down, (1), you can see that the problem of pressing the cheeks towards sharp teeth with a cavesson is much smaller since the horse has no teeth there, the cheeks are thinner and the jaw is narrower.

The attached lower strap is not even very good at doing its part of the job, since it runs diagonally across the face, and not straight. Anyone who has ever used a string of tape to fix two things together will know that unless you tape/bind straight across, it will be looseish in a rubbery kind of way.

This also goes for the more common way of fitting this kind of cavesson, that is, with the cavesson part further down the nose and thus more diagonal or slanted, and the flash strap more straight across like can bee seen in the image to the left. This would be to mimic the drop noseband even further. This would work, but you''d still have the teeth-to-cheek problem arising from the cavesson part. So why, in God''s name, not use a drop...?

This photo is also a fine illustration as to just how tight you can pull this kind of noseband attachment.