Tiedown... question from a friend

[lollielala]

My friend asked me this question and I told her I wasn't sure about it. She asked how a noseband tiedown would look with a hackamore that has a noseband. I told her I thought it would look okay, but that I would ask the advice of everyone here. How do you guys think it would look?

[cvb]

by hackamore - do you mean bosal ?

I'm not really an expert on this subject, but working from first principles...

my understanding of tie downs is that they tend to be used with bits. Then the horse can use the support of the tie-down, but the rider does not interfere with the nose pressure, and the tie-down does not interfere with the rider's aids.

I think that if you combine tie down with hackamore, you are going to get mixed messages as the tie-down will effect the rider's aids.

I would also be a little concerned that putting a tie-down on a hackamore would result in quite a lot of pressure in the horse's nose - which could cause problems both in the "now" and in the future. e.g. the horse's nose could go numb (in theory) which would then mean the horse would not feel and react to any rider aids to turn, stop etc. He could also get stressed by the pain. And long term could become desensitised to nose pressure and hence "untrained".

This is "doom gloom and despondency" and I haven't any direct experience to back up this up - just simple physics and biology. But its not something I would try myself. (regardless of how it "looked").