It’s stated over and over and over and over, ‘Why use a double bridle’, ‘why put all that junk on if you don’t need it’, ‘it’s so much harder and so much more prestigious to do the fei in the snaffle’. In fact in quite a number of situations, it is easier to ride the upper level work in the snaffle.
Many people have experienced the person who puts their pulling, fighting horse in a double bridle to tame him, or get him to stick his nose in toward his chest at the lower levels(‘assume the position’), what they haven’t seen maybe is the many riders who perhaps a little later in training, find they haven’t straightened their horse enough, increased his impulsion enough or evened up his contact enough, that the double isn’t the big red flag waving, granted, in a far subtler way than the lower level horse in need of brakes, perhaps, but this is a big problem.
It is so frustrating an issue, I think because people don’t understand the double bridle’s use or how it really affects training and performance, they keep saying that - why use the double (at all?).
This is the reason some people decry this new rule, they see it as making the PSG easier. In one sense, yes, it is a challenge to ride the upper level work in the snaffle, but in a very real sense, it is also extremely challenging to ride it in the double bridle!
Some may only see the difficulty of managing two reins, or the beginner struggling to not haul on the curb rein as the challenge, but in fact there’s far more to it - it’s a very suitable test to really have a horse correct in the double, even when, classically, it spends only part of its time in the double (traditionally the horse still spends much of his time at the fei levels in the snaffle, keeping his working gaits lively and free, not working on collection - and even some time with the curb rein dropped in the double bridle, whenever needed during work in the double).
[I]The reason the double bridle has been required for the higher levels for so long is that it is a traditional test of the skill of the trainer, that the connection is profoundly correct, that the horse has sufficient impulsion to perform the harder work, that the horse takes even contact on both reins, etc.
The double is the kimono opener par excellence; it exaggerates and displays every single flaw in the training the way no snaffle bridle can. Because the effects of the bridle are divided into two bits with two somewhat different actions, it’s as if you put a magnifying glass on each effect of each bit.
Other traditional tests are riding in the curb alone, reins in one hand, releasing momentarily one or both reins, performing a collected movement right after an extended one, performing an extended movement at the very end of the test, riding in working gaits…none are quite as difficult as performing well in the double bridle. [/I]
