Does your horse need more forward?

Have you been told your horse needs more forward?

Do you think that means it needs more speed?

There’s a good chance your horse doesn’t actually need more speed, which is what we are inclined to think and try to do, but it actually needs more power!

When we ride our horses for more speed it pushes them out of their naturally stride, rushes them on the forehand and makes the stride short and choppy. This makes the ride less pleasant to watch but more importantly makes the horse less structurally sound.

The forwardness that we are looking for is power and the horse tracking up (prints of the hindquarters stepping into the prints for the forehand).

The power and tracking up that allows the power to travel through their body, lifts the forehand and develops impulsion. This connectedness and lift of the whole body engages the horses’ core postural muscles and improves their overall long term soundness while in the frame. It does this by:

• Shifting their weight off the forehand thereby reducing the concussion on the forehand.

• Getting them to lift their tummy muscles so they hold from their core instead of bracing their back.

• Lengthening their neck thereby reducing the compression and pain through the neck and pole.

• Increasing overall freedom of movement, elasticity and tone.

So to get more forward we actually need more slow!!!

Say what?

To build the strength and power of the hindquarters and also tune the sensitivity to legs mean go, we need to ask our horses to slow, wait and sit into their haunches and then drive forward out of it kind of like squats.

So now not only are you using an exercise that BUILDS your horses ability to give you that forward but also an exercise that TUNES your horse in to the aid.

And this is how we like to work at Equestrian Movement.

It doesn’t matter how good you are at applying an aid, if your horses can’t physically do what you’re asking it won’t respond to it until it is. So we use exercises that build our horses musculoskeletal system to ride a frame, and incorporate the aids within the exercise that will be our cues or words that we will use with our horse once they are physically ready.

This way, we are NOT desensitising or deadening our horses to the aids, but we ARE developing them for longevity of their career.

Interested in how we do this?

Check out our course Green to Self Carriage, where we break down all the aids and exercises so that they build on top of each other all the way through to your horse working in a working frame for soundness & longevity.

9 Things No One Tells You About Owning A Horse

Owning a horse is amazing. The intimate bond of horse and human, the ability to ride whenever you like, a place to escape to when home or work is too much... right? 

Honestly, it is amazing. But there is a side to horse ownership that no one truly discusses. Here is a list of what we think most horse owners are experiencing but not sharing:

1) People will call you a crazy horse person

But seriously, who cares? If a person can't at least respect your personal preference for your 4 legged friend, well let's just say that's exactly why we prefer them!

2) You will get asked if other people can ride you horse. A lot.

"Oh, you have a horse? Can my cousin's best friend's son's girlfriend's half sibling ride it?" It's amazing how many people come out of the woodwork.

3) Insects are a part of life.

Equestrian life is not one for those that suffer Entomophobia or Arachnophobia.

4) You will constantly check the weather.

Can I ride after work? Which rug am I using tonight? It will become an obsession.

5) Baling twine. The next WD-40.

Seriously. It fixes everything. Fences, rugs, even broken bridles. If you don't have baling twine in your pocket, can you really say you own a horse?

Either get my bailing twine or label this the latest in fall fashion...

6) You will become an expert at fence repairing and rug repairing.

Why did my high school have to make me choose between home economics and woodworking?

7) Your horse will have better and more expensive 'clothes' than you... and you wont care.

Well, I do need a different saddle for each discipline, plus more rugs and saddle cloths than one horse can handle. Plus, blingy brow bands - how can you pass them by?

8) Sheath cleaning, Udder cleaning and Beans

Seriously didn't even know this stuff existed til I had a horse. These are the true reason we have latex gloves in the first aid kit. And if you need help, there are heaps of youtube videos available (yes, I checked).

9) You will wish you were taller on many occasions.

"Hi Mum - wait, is that a worming paste? Let me show you my impression of a giraffe!" Ring any bells?

Did we miss any? Tell us below!

The Independent Seat (part 2)

Using your seat as a tool for communication

This article is best to read after you have done our course “3 weeks to improving your riding”. In this course we go into depth about the angles and lines we need in our posture that allows for maximum range of movement in both ourselves and our horses and also how to move and follow our horse. It includes 3 weeks of exercises designed by a personal trainer to help you hold this posture easier. This will also only work if your horse is working correctly in self carriage and connection. --Katie

Everything we are trying to do with our horses is to create more engagement, more self carriage, to create a stronger, more elastic top line so that our horse can move more freely, move with more power and agility, to reduce the concussion of the movement on their body and develop their core strength and soundness for a long and healthy riding career. The tighter we are through our thigh and the more we pivot at our knee and our hip in our dressage seat, even if we are trying to lean back to keep our upright, the more we are putting our horse onto the forehand. This is why all the angles and lines we discuss in “3 weeks to improving your riding” is so important. When we break these lines and angles we distribute our weight away from our centre of balance and then try to counter balance ourselves. Our horse then tries to counter balance our imbalance and both ours and our horses posture “shrinks and curls” to try and protect our balance. If we start with our center of gravity and work out, engaging the same balance points as we do on the ground we have the best opportunity of maintaining our posture and guiding our horse to maintain their balance, posture and center of gravity.

Once we understand how to do this and our connection is established we can then start to use our seat to communicate. This is our ultimate goal. The more we can communicate from our seat, the less we interrupt our horses flow and balance with our hands. If we do this exercise describe below without having established connection our horse will “jack up” and potentially also rear. Our horse needs to know how to sit into its haunches and lift through its tummy so that it is shortening its body in a way that lengthens the crest. Which is why we have our foundation exercises of self carriage that ensure our horse can first do all these things and that we also have an adequate feel of how to distribute the horses weight and balance effectively. Once these skills are established this is very easy. If these skills aren’t established your horse will let you know if you try this exercise. Make sure you listen to your horse and get help by someone who understands these principles if you are unsure.

Establishing a half halt with our seat.

Katie demonstrating the correct position in the saddle to improve your independent seat

First have all the prerequisites of self carriage established. Tempo changes, bend and changes of bend, transitions within the pace and pace to pace, shortening and lengthening the frame, rein back over a pole, trot poles and canter poles, introducing leg yield and shoulder fore.

Have the angles and lines of an independent seat as described in “3 weeks to improving your riding”.

At the halt:

• Cuddle your calves

• Squeeze your butt checks together like you are trying to hold a poo in

• Lift through and rotate through your pelvis like your practised on the fit ball in “3 weeks to improving your riding”

• Draw your shoulder blades together and open your chest

• Increase the angle through your elbows, taking your hands towards your hips gently, keeping a straight line elbow hands reins to bit.

The end goal is that the horse squeezes together and their head comes onto the vertical. Release the pressure for this.

To get this right you want to balance the amount of energy you are creating with your legs to the amount of wait you’re are creating with your hands.

Think about driving a manual car if you have the clutch out of gear it doesn’t matter how much you put your foot down on the accelerator the car won’t go. In a horse that understand self carriage and connection the contact is like your clutch you are balance the revs (forwardness from your legs) with the amount of clutch that is engaged (contact). If you don’t engage the clutch (contact) as you rev (legs) the car won’t accelerate with power (your horse will be strong out on the forehand). If you have to much revs (legs) to clutch (contact) your car will accelerate uncontrollable and do a burn out (your horse will take the bolt and spit you out the side). We are trying to find the balance between just enough rein add to say wait without stopping and just enough leg aid to say stay moving powerfully forward without rushing and this creates impulsion. When we go into this level of detail you can see why our foundations need to be so clearly established for both ourselves and our horses.

What we are trying to do here is establish this aid above which is our half halt by tightening and lifting through our seat to squeeze our horse together and lift the forehand.

We are not going to be riding like this all the time it is an add. We cuddle, squeeze, lift and draw our horse up and to us and then relax and allow our horse to move. We are creating a controlled tension which shortens, bounces and re-energises the stride and riding forward out of it.

As we ride forward our horse will going onto the forehead and we also have an opportunity here to create acceptance of the bit. As we relax and allow our hands forehand we are asking the horse to follow our hands forward out of the frame, to poke its nose out. Just before it gets to strung out, we cuddle, squeeze, lift and draw our horse in and up to us and then relax and slowly inch our hands forward encouraging our horse to poke its nose out seeking the contact. Rinse and repeat. This is your new half halt. The more often you ride this aid combination the stronger your horse will get through the chest and the shoulders and the more impulsion you will create.

This ability to shorten and lift into you is also your prerequisite to collection and why the transition from novice to elementary is so hard for some. If you have learnt how to get your horse into a frame by grounding them and putting them more onto the forehand you have to go back to scratch and relearn how to work your horse uphill into the frame if you are to achieve collection. The impulsion is a natural progression of self carriage that becomes collection.

Activating this seat aid is part of the puzzle. Your horse can only come uphill if you do first.

Afraid to Ride (Diary of an Adult Rider) - Part 2

So while I am a competent rider, I will admit to not always being a confident rider.

This became extremely apparent when I started working with Custard after I lost my mare.

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Custard is a gentleman and has never done anything to actually harm me, but there has been several moments riding him that have resulted in a shakeup of my confidence level, and they all come down to a mismatch in our training – I have been trained to expect a conversation with my horse when riding him, and Custard had no idea how to do this.

The first time he had a freak out while I was riding him, I ended up freaking too, as there was nothing I felt I could do to bring him back to me and I felt I had lost all contact - including the brakes. My brain was firing with images of how we would both end up dead, impaled on a fence picket.

Despite a lot of work and Custard’s increasing ability to talk with his rider, it’s still a niggling memory that flares up any time that he has to work a little bit out of contact – like at the moment, when he is trying to coordinate lifting his forehand in trot with a rider (or trying to get out of engaging his core by attempting to trot with a rider).

It was actually during one of those moments, in the midst of my heart-in-the-mouth moment, that I actually REALLY noticed my reaction – the anxiety increase, the need to curl into the foetal position, the clamping down on the reigns – I’m sure my face would have grimaced too. Nothing that a competent rider should really be doing to your horse, don’t you agree?

That moment got me thinking. If my confidence can impact on my competence, inversely shouldn’t my competence affect my confidence?

In that actual moment, after a minute or 2 of deep breathing and an internal monologue that consisted of phrases like “You can ride in trot”, “He can only hold it for a few steps so he is unlikely to take off” and my internal bitch piping up with “It’s time to put your big girl knickers on!”, that I decided to stop letting fear control my riding competence.

Custard and I had our first trot together the other day. It wasn’t pretty – we were both awkward – but it was real progress for us both.

Let’s hear it for big girl knickers!!!

UPDATE January 2020

It excites me to tell you that I no longer experience nerves when riding Custard in the arena. He has softened to our lessons, learnt that it is ok for him to say when he has had enough, and he has also learned that I won’t push him too far out of comfort zone (and never into pain zone).

The thought of taking him on a trail ride fills me with a couple of butterflies, but the great thing about that is I know only a small portions of that is nerves, and the rest is excitement!

2020 will be his year to have a comfortable, confident trail ride outside of the paddock - keep an eye on our facebook group for updates on our progression!