I was in a Test Riding clinic with my young horse yesterday and the judge suggested that I concentrate on riding the shoulders of this horse, as he can get quite bendy in the neck.
Any exercises, suggestions for this?
Cinder
When riding a 20 meter circle use inside thigh to push horse into outside rein.
Can only think that your shoulder position should mirror his.
I’m English and never heard of riding the shoulders.
Unless you are letting him lose the shoulder i.e. on a circle.
In that case, try to flex the neck as opposed to bend and use the outside rein and inside leg.
Paddy
I have no idea if this is what the clinician meant, but …
My horse has a tendency to overflex his neck, too. And when I ask him to reach for the bit by tapping up the hind feet, he tends to give me more up and down motion instead of coming through his back.
So my instructor had me encourage him to free up his shoulder and step out by giving him light taps with the whip just behind his elbow as the front foot leaves the ground (walk or trot). Or position my foot slightly in front of the girth and give him a little leg, alternately as the feet leave the ground (without changing my seat – it took a a little practice.) It’s helped his trot and improved his walk even more.
Actually a pretty clear and helpful suggestion, not sure where the confusion comes in. You are overbending him, most likely to the inside. Try to think about making your circles/corners with NO bend/flexion for a while, just bringing the shoulders around the turns. It will feel strange at first but then you’ll probably be just right.:yes:
Aaahhhh … that makes sense, too. Push him into the outside rein, as someone else said.
My horse overflexed his neck as an evasion to avoid releasing his back – and not just on corners or circles. He did it going down the long side of the arena. 
When I asked him to reach for the bit by activating his hind legs, he’d just do the rubber ball routine and move up and down rather than reach out. Looks real cute, but not what I wanted.
You were probably steering the horse by pulling the inside rein too much. Which overbends the neck and doesn’t correctly turn the horse. It helps to think of the horse beginning at the shoulders when trying to turn. That way you steer his body and not his head.
My youngster is a “get the shoulders first” horse. What works for him is counter flexion, not a lot, just a little bit, and keeping him straight in the outside rein. Transitions within the gaits, and riding him in shoulder-fore.
If my horse isn’t straight on the circles, my instructor gets me to do an exercise where I ride the circle and bend her head to the outside of the circle while keeping her contained on the same line, then change the rein and bend her to the other outside - this works very well. lol can’t describe it very well sorry. Found it difficult at first but ok now if I have to use it.
Working on ‘pushing’ around the corners helps, as does watching the outside ear, both on circles and going straight.
Bend, counter bend, placing neck between front legs are helpful, along with counter-bent turns on the haunches. Any exercise that permits you to move shoulders anywhere you want them to be.
Make sure you aren’t contributing to the problem by assymetrical riding - looking down to the inside, twist in the body, collapsing, too much inside rein, etc etc.
I have one with big shoulders that she will throw around given the opportunity. For a while we rode alot of squares, with the corners being almost a turn on the haunches using the outside rein. This really helped keep both shoulders correctly under her and helped me feel when they weren’t.
Horse needs to understand what you are actually asking for and you need to understand what your goal is in bending your horse correctly. Your goal is to develop an equal bend through the body on circles (picture from the top down of the spine of the horse), be it a large or small circle or quarter circle through the corners, whatever. If you are just pulling the horse through the bend you are not getting an equal bend throughout the spine and body. You are only bending the neck and the body is too straight. This is unbalanced.
You must explain to your horse that you want bending at the shoulder and directly behind the elbow. You may need to tap your horse on the shoulder or right behind the shoulder when beginning to teach the horse to move away from your “inside leg on the girth”. You can also scrape the heel of your boot on the area at the girth. You can use blunt spurs on some horses if you do not get too agressive with them. You may need to “loosen your leg” from having it just hang down and pull it away from the side of the horse so that you can give your horse a slight kick “on the girth”. The horse must understand that he needs to move away from pressure “on the girth”. This will allow you to begin to postion the shoulders of the horse.
When horse moves away from any of the requests, make sure you say thank you. In order for the horse to move away from pressure of the “inside leg on the girth” he must move his shoulders. This way you begin getting the bending from directly behind the shoulders, taking the shoulders with it, rather than a lot of inside rein pulling.
This is the beginning of the “inside leg to outside rein” set of aids that gives a foundation for adding a little more sophistication to the bend. Later you can add “outside leg behind the girth” to bring the haunches back on track and give an even more balanced bend.
In other words, your inside leg on the girth bends the middle (shoulder) section of the horse to the outside (you are not letting the horse’s shoulder “drop” or fall into the circle) and your outside leg behind the girth bends the back end (haunches) of the horse back in. You are asking your horse to literally bend through the spine laterally by teaching him leg aids and what you want from him.
The body is more difficult to bend than the neck. Teaching the horse to bend evenly and correctly through the spine using leg aids takes a certain amount of sophistication to understand and a fair amount of practice to develop. You are asking your horse to think “abstractly”. Once you understand it at a basic level, it becomes much easier to understand what you are asking your horse to understand. Then you both have to develop the physical conditioning that goes with it. You are both rebalancing yourselves, hopefully as a pair in unison.
It is well worth the effort.
