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Straightness, bend, heaviness

Off Course
#1

This is more a theoretical question. I was doing some thinking and reading on this, trying to figure out how to articulate my thoughts.

The green horse is naturally bent in one direction. Let’s say bent left, finds it harder to bend right. Tracking left on a circle he bulges out his right shoulder and falls out of the circle. Tracking right he bulges in on his right shoulder and counter bends and falls into the circle. The right front foot would be dominant and if you had a high/low hoof issue, the right front hoof would be the flatter foot.

So the horse would be happy to spook counterbent to the right but not work on a small circle to the right with correct bend. Keeping a slight right bend could help block that falling in or spook.

Have I got that logically right, or have I mixed things up here?

Inhand, shoulder in at the walk straight on right rein clearly makes the horse pick up the chest and shift the weight to the left. What’s the effect of shoulder in to the left? And then how different is the effect of shoulder on on the circle? It seems like tracking right and spiralling out would get the horse to unweight the right shoulder? And then spiralling in also right bend to keep the weight off the right shoulder?

Obviously you do need to work both sides but not necessarily the same. I feel like I should have more angle in the shoulder in to the right to shift the body balance, whereas shoulder in left should be done much more modestly to counteract the tendency to fall out. The whole idea is getting the horse to carry balance more equally.

Now how does this play into being heavy on the forehand? I guess it’s because the horse is weighting one leg and falling over it.

My older horse and my project are both naturally uphill horses. Their natural crookedness is relatively subtle compared to longer rangier horses. I’m not even sure what side my older horse is naturally crooked to anymore: she’s not super flexible, but I don’t see a huge difference now.

I’ve been taught a bunch of things inhand and in the saddle that work, but realized I’d been drifting away from using them consistently and there were some gaps in my conceptual framework. I’ve been looking at other people’s more obviously unbalanced green horses and trying to think through what they need (keeping my mouth shut of course) and also thinking that while project mare is nicely balanced at liberty, she’s asymmetric under saddle. So I do need to do some work.

#2

The biggest (and heaviest) contributor to a horse’s balance under saddle is the pilot. In all these theories you have to be aware of your weight and balance in the saddle.

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#3

Actually, the other way around. My mare definitely falls right, has a weak left hind, and her LF is her flatter foot, RF more upright. I watched a webinar the other day discussing how the horse sort of uses the dominant leg to vault the body mass over/forward, which makes a lot of sense. I always say my mare uses her RF like a post and her LF like a kickstand.

SI to the left helps to control the shoulder, and having the RF forward, she can’t use it to vault over. Also it puts more of the body mass in front of her weaker left hind. Haunches in right is one of the most useful exercises for her though, to lengthen the left side and get the hind leg carrying.

#4

Ok, interesting! Project mare is the first high/low horse I’ve worked with. After a year it’s pretty much fixed but the formerly low foot is still a bit narrower. A year ago it was scary.

Her shoulders are much more symmetrical than I feared, when we finally had saddle tracings done. However, her right shoulder is slightly smaller than her left, which would make sense if the hoof is lower.

So it’s true that her right side might be weaker than her left, but it’s still the side she will bulge on under saddle, and resist a tight turn towards. I have gathered this from watching two different pros give her some training rides. Maybe she’s just overal lower on that side.

At liberty, she is very well balanced every which way, up down back front sideways :). I’ve been doing in-hand flexions and shoulder in variations, and right bend is somewhat harder for her. I haven’t started anything on the half pass/haunches in/out series, as that can be hard to finesse on the ground. I’ve been doing our lateral work in a halter and now a longeing cavesson but i think I need a snaffle with reins to do the second series where she’ll need to be bent away from me. It may be early days on our overall teaching schedule to try that. Maybe I can put reins on the cavesson.

After I posted this yesterday, I went out and put a snaffle on older Paint mare and walked her through all the shoulder-in variations and counter bend and spirals. She was having a low energy day overall :slight_smile: but I couldn’t feel a huge difference in direction at the walk. Her lateral work at trot is heavily dependent on her energy level :slight_smile: so I didn’t bother yesterday. I think her difference in symmetry shows more at the trot.

Anyhow, there is great detailed information on balancing feet from the farrier and trimming world. There are details of movement that might require a high tech lameness vet workup to see. There is great detailed information on body biomechanics from biomechanics people. There is great detailed instruction on lateral work to balance a horse. But it’s hard to put all the information together into a coherent whole. I am always aware in horses that a given modality or expert can be, say, 85% correct, but then base some claims on myth or on an area of horse knowledge where they aren’t an expert.

Maybe high-low is not 100% linked to natural crookedness. I mean horses with perfect feet also have natural crookedness. Maybe it’s just a random factor in the mix?

#5

It’s so hard to say. Some high/low seems to be linked to C6/C7 malformation. Others say if the legs are long compared to the neck, and the horse has to separate the front legs to graze, that can set up the growth pattern. If the carcass is hung asymmetrically between the scapula, it only makes sense that there would be distal asymmetry. But if that’s not present to an appreciable degree, there are plenty of other opportunities for the horse to be asymmetrical through the rest of the body.

This is the webinar I referenced in my previous post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs3b-yMLwRY

#6

Also, FWIW, my mare is consistently sore on her left shoulder (low foot), so I try not to over-do pushing her over to that leg. Now that she is more schooled I have better control of the haunches and focus on aligning the “rear wheel drive.” Thinking about the vaulting over the dominant front leg analogy, I kind of wonder if pushing her over to her left shoulder was actually unhelpful as she tends to want to put that leg out and forward to catch herself already.

#7

A horse that is heavy on the forehand is a horse that A) is leaning on the bit/the rider’s hands for support, and B) a horse that has not truly lifted through the base of the neck (hence the leaning), which means that it’s highly unlikely he’s lifted through his back and really carrying himself.

The flatter foot it going to tend to be the one the horse overweights. Same with joint substance - take a look at your aged horse and I bet dollars to donuts you’ll be able to tell which hind leg they want to use more based on which one has larger, more substantial fetlock and hock joints.

I would not be working a horse with more angle/bend in one direction than another, even if they are substantially stiffer or more hollow in one direction. You’re working towards evenness in both directions, so you ride the horse as even as you can in both directions.

Instead of trying to think about it is what body part is where, when and how to influence it, I think about “where is the horse thinking?” If I’m in a left bend through a corner and my horse is thinking to the right, I will notice he’s bracing at the poll but often giving in the middle of his neck, creating an “s” curve. He will falling through the outside shoulder but still trying to lean left and he will not be filling up my outside (right leg) aids. Everything the horse does has a counterpoint somewhere in the body - there are no independent actions.

I also find getting on my hands and knees and re-enacting what I’m feeling helps immensely to figure out what the horse’s motivations might be if I’m unsure.

#8

Ok I will watch when I have a free hour!

I am trying to apply the vaulting idea to my project horse. She bulges to the right, falls out to the right, her right front shoulder is a tad lower and her right front foot will flatten and run out without careful trimming. But this is all very subtle as she’s a naturally balanced and uphill horse and breed.

I had a young coach on her a couple weeks ago who felt it necessary to head off the scoot sideways and buck by riding in tight western circles to the right. Coach overdid that and I think made her sore because that does throw horse more on the flatter foot.

In-hand I’ve been doing shoulder in which has the opposite effect in that you bend right but move left, and get the weight off the right front foot. Shoulder in left or leg yield left might come more naturally as that follows her natural bend and desire to fall out right.

#9

Hmm. My 17 year old horse has completely symmetrical joints.

#10

My 23yr old horse has a larger LH fetlock and pastern and lands and pushes off harder with the RH (according to my Equestic clip data).

It isn’t necessary to exaggerate the angle or bend on the weaker side as that weakness means the same angle or bend will be more demanding on the weaker side.

My 23yr has a low right shoulder. There was a time I needed to shim that shoulder in order to stop the saddle dropping right and putting more pressure on that side (the which tends to make the shoulder sore and the horse drop the shoulder to escape the discomfort/pain). With work on getting both hind legs under him, lifting his withers and increasing the weight shift back over his hindquarters he learned to carry his shoulders level in action and I had to remove the shim. He still has a low right shoulder but not when he’s moving.

A bulging outside shoulder is an evasion to the bend and may be the horse “bending” through the neck and not the body. The bulging inside shoulder and counter bend could indicate stiffness in the neck - tight muscles along the left side making stretching to allow the right bend painful - combined with the stiff spine.

Personally I find that working with a smaller bend on a pattern with frequent changes of direction more helpful than working one side (like spiraling in and out on a circle) because when there is that much resistance to the bend asking for too much or too long on one side tends to let the horse lock in the degree of bend they’re willing to give as it grows tiring or painful. The frequent changes prevent the lock and loosen the stiffness allowing for a gentle increase in bend each time.

While serpentines are the obvious pattern I like Needlepoint from 101 Dressage Exercises as a base pattern that can be embellished with lateral work and changes within and between gaits. It combines circles, half circles, straight lines and corners which requires varying degrees of bend on the one rein before repeating on the other rein.

#11

No, the feet have little to do with crookedness. Sometimes crookedness is because of the rider. Sometimes.

My horse’s front feet aren’t even but have never been a problem. His farrier is really good. Left is more upright. He canters much better to the right and responds better to transitional aids in this direction, but it is up to me to manage his want-to-bulge-shoulder. Cantering to the left is harder for him regarding bend and suppleness. But as I’m teaching him flying changes, he’s so much better from right lead to left, 100% unexpected. He’s pretty equal on lateral work in both directions, esp at the trot.

Teaching haunches in and out stopped him from anticipating and really improved his trot work. He picked it up rather quickly. The downside is that he’ll throw this into the mix when I’m actually asking for something else because he SOOOOOO much anticipates what you’re going to ask. I’m working out if this is an evasion or misunderstanding as I don’t want him to feel punished by participating in the ride. I want a horse who can think.

I suggest shoulder- in at the trot can canter: shoulder-in is the mother of all exercises. Leg yields at both gates and giving the horse a reason to pay attention to the rider!

#12

Interesting! I think our horses have different patterns, so maybe your mare’s RF is more her “kickstand” but she is weighting it more? What is her stance pattern when grazing? My mare 99.9% of the time has her high foot back and flat foot forward. However, she has a low left hip from a likely SI injury (poor thing is kind of a mess!) so that might be complicating her crookedness pattern. I have trimmed her myself the four years I’ve owned her, so I’m super familiar with the different tendencies of each of her feet. She has a little better heel structure on the low hoof these days, and a little less contraction on the high foot, but they will probably never really match up. Under saddle she is hollow left, stiff right, and haunches always drift to the left. HI left is easy, SI left is hard.

#13

The front hooves on project mare look way more equal now than they ever have since I started working with this horse, but the right still wants to dish at the toe the tiniest bit. They are more uniform solar view than I was expecting. She’s totally sound.

Today I tried coubterbend on a circle in-hand with the longeing cavesson. She finds tracking right/ bent left very easy. She finds tracking left /bent right more challenging, but she was picking it up after a while. I think that might be the right exercise for her issue. She has to shift her weight left and carry herself.

It seems to make sense that doing counter bend or counter shoulder-in bent right/tracking left that I make the angle and bend more pronounced to get her off her right shoulder. And that going the opposite way, I make the bend much smaller, because she naturally wants to bend left and fall right. Obviously the difference will be reduced over time as she gets more balanced.

I put reins on the cavesson and tried to get her to bend away from me to try haunches in or out, the side pass class of lateral work. She didn’t understand it or find or find it feasible, so I dropped it. Way too early days for that.

With my older mare, it took years before I could see how lateral work in hand was actually making her carry herself in front. The shoulder in and turn on the forehand did not come easily to her ( and I was learning these concepts as I was training her). She started with much more of a tendency to fall on the forehand and disengage her hind quarters after a few steps. Over the years though, she has even changed how she plays in turnout, fewer of those stops in corners splaying around on the forehand, more catering tight turns and staying up in front.

Project mare doesn’t really know disengaging the hind end and falling on the forehand is even a thing. Her idea of getting out of a tight corner is bull fighting moves with the front end.

#14

YMMV to a certain degree, obviously, as things like old, healed injuries, arthritis creating fluid fill/windpuffs can cause joints to be larger or smaller as well.

Either way, it’s certainly an interesting exercise in observation.

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