Recent photographs of elite-level horses with gaping mouths and blue tongues have thrust the sport of dressage—already besieged by abuse scandals involving high-profile riders—further into an intensifying debate about horse welfare in equestrian sports. But even though the Fédération Equestre Internationale formed a special committee to address ongoing controversies, it has so far declined to adopt a rule change proposal that would allow riders to use snaffle bridles instead of double bridles at the highest level of competition.

Last year, the FEI changed its rule requiring riders to use spurs in international competition, and for the past several years some have asked the group to do the same with the requirement that double bridles, with a curb bit and bradoon, be used at the CDI3* level and above. While some argue that such a rule change would enable elite riders to tailor their equipment to their horses’ unique needs, the proposal has so far gotten a cool reception from the FEI and some other groups, including the International Dressage Riders Club and International Dressage Trainers Club.

The Swedish and Dutch equestrian federations first asked the FEI to re-evaluate the double bridle requirement in 2023 and again in 2024.

“Given the current circumstances regarding the scrutiny and questioning of the dressage sport, we ask the FEI to re-evaluate its decision that it’s mandatory from level CDI3* and CDIO3* and higher to ride with a double bridle,” they wrote in a joint rule change proposal in 2024. “We think it is in the best interest for the dressage sport to make it optional and allow riders to use a snaffle if they deem this in their best interest as a combination.”

That proposal was unanimously rejected by the FEI Dressage Technical Committee both years on the grounds that the issue is a matter of sport rather than welfare.

“We understand the concerns regarding the social (media) perception, but on this topic, it is our understanding that the perception and reality are not aligned,” the FEI wrote of the rule change proposal in 2024. “Despite the amount of relevant work carried out until now, conclusive and/or unquestionable evidence has not been brought to the DTC that allow us to reach a different conclusion.”

However, the committee opened the door for experimental classes to be held in 2025, in which the snaffle would be allowed.

“The DTC suggests that this topic could be further evaluated during the 2025 season by encouraging organizers to include a special restricted class for athletes who wish to use the snaffle bridle in Grand Prix up to CDI3* level. Data from these studies would assist in the future assessment of the topic,” the committee wrote in a rules revision document released last October.

Currently, the FEI has not received any applications from any organizing committee to run a three-star in which snaffles are permitted for the 2025 competition calendar. But that may change soon.

“This remains an active area of discussion within the FEI. The Dressage Strategic Action Planning Working Group, together with the Dressage Technical Committee, is preparing a further proposal on this topic as part of our ongoing rule revision process,” stated an FEI spokesperson via email in May.

“If you have to put the double bridle on because you can’t get the horse on the bit, then it’s wrong.”

Kyra Kyrklund

According to members of the FEI Dressage Strategic Action Plan working group, the committee assembled last year to address public concerns about the sport, the current mandatory requirement exists because the double bridle is a necessary test of skill for elite athletes.

“You need a certain skill to ride with the double bridle,” working group member and six-time Finnish Olympian Kyra Kyrklund said. “You need good body control, and you need to be able to use one aid at a time and feel what you are doing. If you have to put the double bridle on because you can’t get the horse on the bit, then it’s wrong.”

Holding The Line

At the FEI Sports Forum in March, the working group made no recommendations about allowing the snaffle in upper-level competition. But the individual members who touched on the subject largely characterized the issue as demonstrating the need for increased rider education, rather than a relaxation of equipment rules.

“We really need horsemen and women to educate the young people when they are getting curb bits,” said Kyrklund.

“We all know that curb bits are expensive, and I see many times that riders only have one curb. Often, it’s either too wide, or the port is too small or too big, so you get a lot of problems.”

Klaus Roeser, secretary general of the International Dressage Riders Club, did not respond to a request to comment, but he co-authored an open letter in support of the double mandate to the FEI in 2022 with International Dressage Trainers Club secretary general Linda Keenan.

“We believe that neither the double bridle nor spurs represent a welfare risk to horses and there exist sufficient controls to ensure against their misuse. To make these two pieces of equipment optional would have no positive impact on horse welfare,” they stated.

“While it might be tempting to make these items optional as a ‘peace offering’ to critics in the hope that they will be satisfied, that approach is incorrect and naïve,” the letter continued. “But more importantly giving in to unwarranted or ignorant criticism is practically and ethically wrong. To institute a rule under the guise of horse welfare which has no positive impact on horse welfare would be disingenuous and cynical.”

Tailoring To The Horse

Michael Bragdell is a Maryland-based Grand Prix competitor who has competed at the Grand Prix level in a snaffle at national shows, where the bit is allowed.

“Some horses do better than others with a snaffle or a double,” he said. “I think it depends on the horse, and a little bit on where you are in terms of level of training. But it doesn’t matter whether you’re riding a training level horse or a Grand Prix horse, you’re always going to be addressing the connection to some degree. I think if the horse goes better in the snaffle, why shouldn’t it be allowed to show in the snaffle?”

Fellow Grand Prix competitor Charlotte Jorst echoed the sentiment. She previously took advantage of the FEI’s relaxation of its spur requirement to shed the metal with her particularly sensitive small tour horse Atterupgaards Botticelli, who reacted poorly to even the dummy spurs previously required at FEI competitions.

“I think having a choice is always better than not having a choice,” she said. “For those people that want to be out there and want to show but maybe their horse is difficult in the mouth—God knows there are so many horses that are difficult in the mouth—then I think it will be a lot easier for them to get in the ring with a snaffle. Because nobody’s going to get in the ring now with a horse with even the slightly open mouth.”

Thus far, however, members of the FEI’s working group have been more focused on other changes a rider could make—namely, ensuring proper curb chain and noseband fit—rather than adding the snaffle bridle to those options. As of May 1, horses in FEI competitions across all sports may have their noseband tightness checked using a standardized gauge.

“The tightness of the curb chain also needs to be checked before or after the test,” working group member and German dressage team coach Monica Theodorescu said at the FEI Sports Forum in April. “And for the angle of the curb, we said something like 45 degrees. So it shouldn’t be more than that, or else the bit is not adjusted accordingly or correctly. We see a lot of horses where it just doesn’t fit with the width of the noseband, or the noseband is too wide. Then there is not enough room between the curb and a snaffle bit and the noseband.”

Theodorescu also worried that permitting snaffles at Grand Prix could create a perverse incentive for judges to be more generous with their scores to riders using snaffle bridles, given the perception that double bridles can mask connection issues and thus create an illusion of a harmonious ride. In turn, this could motivate riders to show in a snaffle bridle for fear of being marked down for riding in a double bridle.

The working group’s chair, former USDF President and current US Equestrian Dressage Youth Coach George Williams, expressed skepticism that judging would change if the rules were relaxed.

“If you have two performances where everything is equal—the double bridle is accepted and handled very well by the horse and the rider, versus a snaffle that is accepted and handled very well by the horse and rider—I don’t think that a judge could weigh one as better than the other one. I would hope that they would be judged equally,” he said.

While he firmly believes the double bridle is an important test of the rider’s expertise, Williams shared that he has qualms about its widespread use in some situations.

“I see a huge overuse of double bridles with young horses, from a training point of view,” he said, “so I do personally have concerns about the overuse of it. But competition at the highest levels is just a slightly different issue.”

A First-Class Vs. Second-Class Lever

Those against allowing snaffles at the top of the sport point out that, with rough hands, it is possible to harm a horse regardless of the bit. But the mechanism of action in curb bits puts them in a different category worthy of more discussion, according to equine scientist Andrew McLean, Ph.D.

“A rider can do a lot of damage with the snaffle; there’s no doubt about that,” he said during a session of this year’s FEI Sports Forum. “But I think to begin the discussion, it’s really important to set out and analyze systematically what the curb can do. Because when we have the curb without the chain, or with a minimal chain, we call it a first-class lever. But when we add the chain and tighten the chain, it becomes a second-class lever, and it can do quite a lot of damage. It certainly can be ridden without the damage—I’m not questioning that—but I just think this understanding must form the beginning of a discussion.”

Taking McLean’s view even further, one research team that presented to the FEI Veterinary Committee at the Sports Forum took aim at the welfare considerations of dressage equipment using the high-definition fast-frame photography of elite dressage horses by Norwegian photographer Crispin Parelius Johannessen.

“Having reviewed this evidence, we are concerned that the pressures being applied exceed biological limits, and that even in skilled hands these items of equipment pose a significant welfare risk that must be recognized for what it is,” said Cristina Wilkins, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of New England, Australia.

“Our sole focus is the impact of equipment on horses and not on the individual riders involved,” she added.

Earlier this year, however, the group sent an open letter to the FEI in which they alleged seven top riders—including Olympians Isabell Werth, Patrik Kittel and Charlotte Fry—used equipment that “cause[d] severe and sustained compression of the oral and cranial tissues” at World Cup-qualifying competitions in Europe.

Though their presentation to the committee focused on “equipment-induced pressures creating harm” in dressage horses generally, the vast majority of its imagery featured horses in double bridles. Only a few moments of the presentation were focused on double bridles specifically, so the researchers did not mince their words about the double’s use.

“The evidence is explicit and unequivocal. The dressage horses in our data set are clearly in pain. Open mouths, quivering lower lips, ‘pain faces.’ They have visible compression and sometimes lesioning of the tongue, lips and gums, and pressure on the bars, the diastema,” said David Mellor, Ph.D., professor emeritus of Massey University, New Zealand.

In a study published in the journal “Animals” in April, researchers found that the average force and pressure on horses’ polls was “significantly higher” in double bridles compared to snaffle bridles. But the group found that rein tension was higher in the snaffle bridles at the trot and similar to the double at the walk and canter, and the nose pressure was lower in the double bridles overall.

“We need to educate people, so they use whatever they’re using to interact with their horse in a good way,” Russell MacKechnie-Guire, Ph.D., and one of the researchers involved with the study, told Horse & Hound. “The problem is people and how they use things generally, not the equipment.”

‘A Good Direction’

Riders disagree about the role of the double bridle in dressage sport. Traditionalists view the correct use of the double as the apotheosis of a dressage rider’s training, a skill that is hard-won and requires more tact than mastery of the snaffle. Others believe that riding upper-level movements in the double bridle is easier in some ways, because of the leverage of the curb bit.

“There is a way in which riding in a snaffle is tougher and trickier on the rider,” said Bragdell, “because, from my understanding, you have a higher degree of collection at the upper levels. It’s not always so easy to achieve in the snaffle.

“I’ve noticed that I end up falling back to the snaffle,” added Bragdell, who rides many young and developing horses in his job as head rider at Hilltop Farm in Colora, Maryland.

“I don’t know if it’s because I just have a more honest connection, or because they’re a little bit greener and younger and still learning to go in the double. I do know [that] I don’t want to be shortchanging myself by going the easy-way-out route and riding with a double all the time.”

Some worry that making snaffles optional will ultimately lead to a significant decline or outright ban of the double in dressage competition altogether, though the snaffle has been optional at the FEI small tour level since 2019, and many riders still opt to use the double bridle in those classes.

As a symbol of top dressage sport and a piece of equipment that riders seek to earn, the double bridle isn’t going anywhere, Jorst said.

“It’s a festive thing, when horses come in the ring in the double bridle, and the riders come in with their long jackets,” said Jorst. “When somebody comes in on a big, beautiful horse with a closed mouth in a double bridle, I mean, it’s just beautiful, right? It’s like a glass of champagne at New Year’s. It’s like getting married.”

Dressage rules are not up for a full review by the FEI General Assembly until the spring of 2026, with new proposals set to take effect in 2027. But there may be changes before then.

The action plan working group made no formal recommendations to the FEI Dressage Technical Committee—the FEI group with the authority to make emergency rule changes and other strategic decisions without waiting for General Assembly approval—during the sports forum in March. But Williams shared that the group is “preparing to make recommendations shortly” to the committee.

He would not disclose the exact content of the recommendations, nor the timeline on when they would be released, but he confirmed that at least one would be related to the question of snaffle bridles in top sport.

“I’m hoping that we’ll be able to move forward on the recommendations fairly quickly,” he said.

The technical committee thus far has been mostly reluctant to soften its stance on the double bridle requirement. Whether they will exercise their power remains to be seen.

“I think it would be a good thing,” Bragdell said. “I mean, with the way our sport has been taking a lot of criticism, I feel we would be moving in a good direction to at least have the option to show in the snaffle. It shouldn’t really matter which one you use.”

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This article originally appeared in the June 2025 issue of The Chronicle of the Horse. You can subscribe and get online access to a digital version and then enjoy a year of The Chronicle of the Horse. If you’re just following COTH online, you’re missing so much great unique content. Each print issue of the Chronicle is full of in-depth competition news, fascinating features, probing looks at issues within the sports of hunter/jumper, eventing and dressage, and stunning photography.