What is a gait analysis?

So many times in my riding career, when I was out and about competing, I’d hear lots of the same things:

• Horse needs to be rounder;

• Deeper frame;

• More bend;

• Get them off your leg;

• Ride with more forwardness.

And while these do go a long way in helping our horses develope, it we focus purely on these as our gold standard, it means that we end up compromising our horses:

• soundness,

• quality of gait,

• longevity of riding career,

• competitive potential, and

• overall comfort when being ridden.

I have seen a number of horses developed to these “gold standards”, and ended up watching their strides shorten & become irregular, to the point of causing the horse to become unsound and causing long term lameness issues.

I have even seen horses that have had to be euthanased because their quality of life has significantly reduced due to developing them under these “gold standards”.

Just because a horse is in a rounded frame or on the bit, doesn’t mean it is working soundly!

How then, you ask, can I ensure my horse is working with and for soundness? How can I make sure I am riding my horse in a way that will help protect their riding career longevity?

That is where the gait analysis comes in.

The gait analysis can spot:

• how much our riding is interfering with the quality of the horses movement and their overall soundness;

• an indication of what lameness issues are most likely to come up in our horses future if they continue to work in the same way;

• shows us how we can change their exercise program so that we can not ony ride them for soundness but increase their expression of movement; and

• it can show us what exercises to revisit when the training plateaus, so we can revisit and then continue the progression through the training scale.

At Equestrian Movement, we actually strive to ride horses in a way that the horse itself WANTS to be ridden, and that the action of riding and movement FEELS good.

When the quality of how we ride is judged on head carriage instead of self carriage, quite often we end up seeing horses that are, at best, ridden in discomfort, and at worst, ridden in pain and in a way that they will break down and have to retired or meet an untimely end to their life.

The purpose of a gait analysis is to keep us accountable - that the riding is happening FOR the horse, not to the horse.

So if you want to take steps towards a horse that is sound, happy and working really well in self carriage, click the image below to view our virtual gait analysis package.

Your horse will thank you for it.

Why do we want to work our horse in a frame?

Why is the frame so important in competition?

Why should we want to work our horse in a frame?

The purpose of working our horse in a frame is to reduce the concussion and impact of riding on their musculoskeletal system and hopefully make movement, in particular movement under saddle feel good. Although it has also helped horses with arthritis and injury rehab feel good in the paddock as well.

A frame is not about points on your dressage test. It is not just about the pretty pony.

The true purpose of the working frame seems to be lost to the drive to improve percentages, win ribbons or trophies, and impress the judges.

The frame established for the motivation of competition is often rushed because we feel the pressure to impress our peers and critics.

Rushing the development of frame doesn’t enhance the horses movement, and in actual fact limits it.

Whereas the frame, established with the motivation of structural soundness for our horses to carry us, is a steady process of helping our horses along their pathway of development as told to us by our horses.

This may sound a little weird but our horses know what feels good and what doesn’t. The trick though is differentiating between whether our horse is being lazy or uncomfortable. And this also is the true reason for the progression of exercises in the different levels of dressage.

• The 20m circles in trot and canter, serpentines, transitions and long and low develop the quality of movement for prelim

• The 15m circles in trot and canter, lengthened strides and leg yield develop the quality of movement for novice

• The 10m circles in trot and canter, shoulder in and traver develop the quality of paces towards collection for elementary.

So the trick is, are you competing in prelim with prelim quality of working paces, and comparing yourself to the horse that is training elementary with elementary quality working paces that just happens to be competing in prelim?

Even the horse that is training novice will bring so much more quality to the paces because that’s what the movements they are training develops!

Is this what the judges are comparing you to when they are saying more frame, more bend, more impulsion, more forward?

Trying to force that elementary quality of movement with aids alone is what damages the horses structural soundness. Whereas doing the exercises correctly, that build upon one another to achieve that novice/elementary quality of movement, builds the horses soundness.

The working frame is just the end result of good posture established by solid training and exercises and reduces the concussions of a horse working hollow with poor posture.

The horse rushed or forced into the frame still has the same poor posture and hollowness but just looks pretty doing it, so can get the marks and accolades. But it does long term damage to the horses soundness both their physical soundness and their mental soundness.

Honestly, I do enjoy the challenge of the competition. But I think that a silk ribbon is worth far less than the pain and expense of a structurally unsound horse.

Don’t you?

If you want to establish the working frame so that movement feels good for your horse (whether you want to compete or not), enrolments for the Green to Self Carriage Course are opening for a short time only. We break down the aids, movement and exercises to their most basic form and then build them up to developing sound self carriage ready for collection.

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.

3 Secrets That Will Progress Your Dressage Riding

If you missed the webinar on April 4th, here’s a sneaky replay!

Interested to learn more about the Green to Self Carriage Course? Click here for more details!

Addressing unwanted behaviour is pointless without acknowledging wanted behaviour

Are you constantly on your horses case?

More bend!

More forward!

More frame!

… More, more, more!

One of the biggest things I have to remind my students of is to say good when they are trying, give them a break and give them pats for their good effort.

It’s not that we are purposefully hold out (although sometimes we are taught not to pat or say good boy/girl) but that we get caught up in what we are doing and trying to get the results. On focus is so centered on results that we forget to even congratulate ourselves for our effort and this has flow on affects to the horse.

When we acknowledge wanted behaviour with positive reinforcement (at Equestrian Movement we call them emotional motivators or our horses love language), our horse actively seeks the answer and therefore the reward. An added bonus of the win for the horse is the release of happy hormones associated with task completion, and if we have associated our emotional motivator with our connection with our horses, they will look to do it for us to please us and not just satisfy their own desires.

When we constantly say no, use negative reinforcement and hassle our horses, they eventually stop being curious and stop trying.

If every time they put effort in and try they are told wrong or not good enough there is no reason for them to try and nothing for them to enjoy in the learning process.