How do you describe the “unstraightness” in your horse and your riding? Do you feel a rein stiffness to one side? A should drift? A haunches leading? What terminology do you use? And what tool (mental or physical) do you use to explore and address these issues?
I guess it depends on the horse but all horses (and people) will have some natural asymmetry. I feel like horses have “handed-ness” like people. And most horses are “left sided”.
Right now I have one mare who just really has a much harder time bending to the right, and this is carried all the way along her back, neck, and ribs. What it “feels” like is she has a harder time with self-carriage through turns and circles to the right, collapses her shoulder inwards on the right hand canter, and generally feels braced.
She has a very short strong back and is very strong and catty, but the name of the game is teaching her to work from behind, lift her abs, and continue to stretch to the right.
For me, it is all about NOT bracing against her weak side and “helping” her, but rather keeping my own body aligned, and yes sometimes this means letting her fall in and taking a couple awkward steps until her body adapts.
I can also feel it in my own body, tension from bracing on the right through my shoulder and hip, and tiredness from nagging with my inside leg.
All things to work on!
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Hmm. It’s going to be different in different horses. IME it’s sf always been relatively subtle and shown by things like canter feeling rougher on one lead or reluctance doing lateral work one direction but happy the other way.
Green horse rookedness is usually being curved in one direction. The fix in my experience is a lot of careful lateral work in hand and then under saddle at the walk, then also bend counte bend and spirals. And reaching to the bit.
But crookedness can also be from acute or chronic injury especially in the hind end. That’s a whole other thing.
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I read the book “A Left Hand Turn Around the World” that talks about research showing that animals are pretty 50/50 with being left or right sided. I told someone this and they insisted that isn’t the case because Big TIme Olympian said all his horses were (right or left, I can’t remember now) sided and I had to wonder if that’s because HE was very right sided so tended to do better on the one side.
I knew one horse that seemed to lean on my right rein more than the left but then I started to get what I suspected was carpal tunnel pain in the right elbow and had to wonder how much of it was that arm being more weak so unable to adjust the way the left was able to. He was also a very big horse - 17.2HH and long backed and I’m 5’2" and slight built and short legged - a friend said I looked like a kid riding their parent’s horse when I was in the jump saddle.
My horse tends to be more stiff going right and I think that’s due to her not wanting to step under with her right leg as much so I work a bit more on bending there.
She is mostly pretty even overall, though, the stiffness is generally VERY slight. I don’t think anyone other than myself notices.
As for me, I’m a bit old and crooked. My left leg wants to sit back and I notice I sit crooked when driving. No one rides my horse except myself and sometimes I wonder if she would get confused if someone else got on who isn’t crooked. I don’t know if it’s true but I feel like I ask for left lead more with both legs even, rather than my left leg forward because I’m bringing up from being back. I try to work on sitting even but probably need a chiropractor or something to actually fix myself.
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Well the argument is that since we raise them being handled almost always from the left, that ingrains some left-sidedness. Regardless of where “sidedness” comes from, it’s apparent in the majority of riding horses, and the point re: our own crookedness is very important!!
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Humble Hoof podcast had a very interesting mention recently about a vet stude. 20% of newborn foal is having a broken rib. Which led to them grazing, moving protectively for several of their first weeks. Possibly setting up the lateral asymmetry development.
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It will manifest in many different ways: lack of suppleness on one rein, a weaker canter lead, haunches trailing in or out, shoulder fore or a bulging shoulder, a lack of forwardness, particularly on a bending line, it will also manifest in lateral work, etc.
As another poster said, a lack of straightness can be brought out by a dominant hand. A way to test straightness and if you are using both reins effectively is to ride with reins in one hand (with contact). If one hand is overly dominant or you are using the reins in excess, it will be hard to ride correctly this way.
How to compensate will depend on how it is manifesting. For example, if there is a lack of suppleness on one rein, then that rein needs to be ridden in circles, serpentines, and bending lines to develop bend on that side of the horse. Shoulder in, haunches in (lateral work) to develop the hind legs. It’s important to avoid false bend or pulling that rein to compensate. Many changes of direction, which encourages the spine to bend, greatly helps develop suppleness.
If I have a bulging shoulder then I will ride with more contact on the outside rein to avoid bulging. Inside leg to outside rein. I would slowly increase the bend on that rein with time.
If it’s a weak canter lead, I would develop the weaker lead. Counter canter is excellent for this.
If haunches are trailing outside, I’ll ride again outside rein to inside leg, encouraging bend to the opposite direction, asking the horse for slightly haunches in. I often school a little exaggerated haunches in to develop the hind legs more. I ask for more straightness in extended paces.
If there is a lack of forwardness, I usually get outside of the arena and work on paces out in the field. Gallop. Develop the canter. Lots of lengthenings. Transitions. Develop over all conditioning and fitness in the horse.
Basically, hone in on specifically what is weak and then develop that weakness with progressive training.
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As others have said, it’s different for each horse. There are nuances for sure.
I currently have two horses I’m actively training. One is eight, a homebred and the other is 5. The younger of the two I purchased as an unbacked 3-year-old. They are similar and yet very different. I presume that some of their similarities are due to my own crookedness since I backed/started and have trained both. My 8-year-old has always been weak on his left hind. This I noticed from the very beginning. He also prefers to collapse his right shoulder and not abduct his right fore if given his preferences. This has made being able to give half-halts on the right rein difficult to train; but, not impossible. I think one aspect of this that really is a telltale sign is that his canter on the left (lead/rein) was very different from the one on the right (lead/rein). With training I’ve been working hard to bring them into mirror images of each other and we’re very close.
My 5-year-old also doesn’t like to abduct his right fore and tends to fall over the right shoulder; but he has a solid balanced hind end. He ‘hates’ bending to the right/giving to my right leg. His crookedness makes it hard to put him into the left rein and give an effective half-halt with the rein aid. Now, having said that of course this is where a focus of our training is concentrated; so, we’ll see if I’m able to improve his balance and way of going.
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