Posts Tagged ‘hind legs’

My 11 year old barrel horse is getting windpuffs in his hind legs. This alerted me once again to the stress my horses’ legs take when they run barrels. What can I do to help keep my horses sound?
Thanks to all that answered so far!
Thank you!

Horse blankets are pretty handy to have around a stable, but not essential for every horse owner. A standard horse blanket is used to keep a horse warm and or protected from wind and other elements.

A horse blanket fits around the horse’s body from chest to rump, straps cross underneath the belly and fasten the blanket securely. Most blankets have buckles in the front, today there are blankets that can be slipped over the horses head. Some blankets also have small straps that loop around the horse’s hind legs which. This helps the blanket from slipping sideways.

Horse blankets are designed according to there use. You can buy a single horse blanket and be content with that, or you could have several and use all of them in a single day. Before buying a horse blanket consider its purpose. I strongly suggest you take into consideration who exactly is going to be responsible for putting on and taking off the blanket.

I can not recount how many dollars and pounds I have seen wasted in a stable yard on horse blankets. I have worked in the USA and UK with horses and I still shake my head in disbelief at the countless times a day I would have to change a blanket on a single horse – to suit the owner. Have you ever stopped to consider how your horse feels?

A horse blanket should be versatile enough that it keeps your horse protected in cold weather. If your horse lives out in a pasture and is not stabled, you ought to buy a blanket that is well insulated to keep him warm. The blanket should also be waterproof, that way you or grooms do not have to run out at the first drop of rain to change blankets.

If your horse is stabled, a single warm blanket will suffice. If you buy a light blanket, he may get too cold and his natural response is to grow thick fluffy hair and look like a teddy bear. Most horse owners prefer to deter this response and blanket their horse. If you buy a thick warm blanket you need to monitor its use.

Temperatures drop at night; if you blanket your horse with a horse blanket for severe cold temperatures in the early evening, you are going to have an uncomfortable horse. Your horse most likely will be too hot and start to sweat. When the temperatures drop, he stops sweating, but has cold sweat to deal with and a wet blanket. If anything the blanket in this case is useless.

However if your horse has been clipped, in cold or even cool weather he is going to need more than a simple warm blanket to provide insulation that his hair coat would have done.

Besides protecting your horse from weather elements, there are blankets to protect from flies and gnats which are useful. A cooler or a sweat sheet is another blanket that is highly recommended for a horse owner. This blanket allows your horse to cool down and dry after being washed or exercised, but protects from draughts or chills.

Horse blankets have various designs and uses. You can buy several or you can buy one, only make sure that the blanket best suits your horses needs. You can then choose any color to your liking, provided they are made in that color.

Horse Guide.

Get information on buying, owning and caring for your horse, learn about Buying Horse Blankets. Learn about your horses anatomy.

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Leg-yielding is an elementary exercise that should be taught on a circle (although at times it is asked for on a straight line or diagonal). It is used mainly to teach the horse to move away from the rider’s leg pressure. Once the horse is responsive, the objective is complete, and the horse should be moved towards the more beneficial shoulder-in. I believe leg-yielding has become too popular, for two reasons. First, it is required in some first-level dressage tests, so too much emphasis is placed on “schooling” for this movement. Second, it is much easier to produce than shoulder-in.

To perform leg-yielding, the horse is led onto the circle and the rider’s inside leg, used behind the girth, pushes the hindquarters out. It is easy for the horse; he is not required to maintain this bend and can easily let his hindquarters “fall out”. The horse may thus be denied the strength and balance building required in more advanced movements. He can, in fact, perform this exercise with his weight primarily on his forehand, in effect pushing himself thought the movement instead of carrying it.

Overuse of leg-yielding is not beneficial to the horse’s physical development and will only add to his resistance when he is asked to perform movements that require suppleness, bending and collection.

Shoulder-in, on the other hand, benefits the horse in many ways. The correct execution of this movement will increase the flexion of the hind legs, thereby enabling the hindquarters to carry more weight. This, in turn, allows freer more supple movement of the shoulders. It also increases the horse’s ability to collect and extend paces, and will help to improve the canter departs (again, because the movement develops the hindquarters, and lightens the forehand).

When these exercises are analyzed, shoulder-in is clearly more beneficial, from the fundamental physical development of the horse, to eventual progress to higher levels. Leg-yielding should be used minimally, with knowledge and care. I encourage anyone concerned with the correct development of the sport horse to consider this important issue.

Adrienne Neary lives and trains horses in Maine. She founded a company called Wingspan Arts International, which specializes in quality Equine Products and expert Equine Consultations. http://www.wingspanartsintl.com

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Shoulder-in is the father of the advanced lateral dressage movements. It does many wonderful things for your horse. Here are just some of them:

1. Shoulder-in is a suppling exercise because it stretches and loosens the muscles and ligaments of the inside shoulder and forearm. During shoulder-in, your horse passes his inside foreleg in front of his outside foreleg. This motion increases his ability to move his forearm gymnastically in other movements.

2. It’s also a straightening exercise because you should always straighten your horse by bringing his forehand in front of his hindquarters. Never try to straighten him by leg yielding his hindquarters out behind his shoulders.

3. Shoulder-in is also a collecting exercise. It increases your horse’s self-carriage because he lowers his inside hip with each step. As a result, his center of gravity shifts back toward his hind legs. His hindquarters carry more weight, and his front end elevates.

What Does Shoulder-In look like?

The horse flexes to the inside, and bends around your inside leg. His forehand comes in 30 degrees off the wall so he’s on three tracks. At this angle his inside hind leg lines up behind his outside foreleg.

Sometimes in competition, the judge likes to see a hoof’s width more than three tracks. But don’t bring the forehand in more than that, or you’ll lose the bend.

What Are the Aids?

If you’re doing left shoulder-in, the aids are:

1. Put your weight on your left seat bone.
2. Keep your left leg on the girth for bend and to ask for engagement of the inside hind leg.
3. Place your right leg behind the girth to prevent the hindquarters from swinging out.
4. Use your left rein to create a +1 flexion at poll.
5. Keep your right rein steady and supporting to prevent too much bend in the neck.
6. Keep both hands low and equidistant from your body as you move them to the left. Move them to the left enough to place the outside front leg in front of the inside hind leg. Use your inside rein as an opening rein. Bring your outside hand very close to the withers, but never let that hand cross over the withers.

What’s the Sequence of Aids?

Always ask for bend before you ask for angle. The formula for the advanced lateral exercises is: Bend + Sideways = Engagement. (It’s NOT Sideways + Bend=Engagement.)

* Make a 10-meter circle (or ride a corner with a 10-meter arc) to bend your horse.
* You’ll know your horse is bending easily when you can soften the contact on the inside rein, and he stays bent by himself. He’ll also feel like he’s “giving” in his rib cage. (i.e. If you’re circling to the right, his rib cage feels like it’s bulging to the left.)
* Once he’s bending nicely, start a second 10-meter circle.
* Interrupt that circle during the first step, and continue down the long side.
* To interrupt the circle, look straight down the long side, and give a squeeze with your inside leg.
* Bring both hands to the inside to place the forehand 30 degrees away from the wall.
* Make sure you do shoulder-in with the same amount of bend and angle in both directions. Don’t ride on three tracks in one direction and on three and a half tracks in the other.

How Can You Tell If You’re Doing a Good Shoulder-in?

* The quality of the shoulder-in really comes down to BEND.
* You know your horse is bending if his hindquarters are in exactly the same position (i.e.parallel to the wall) in shoulder-in as they are when you’re just riding straight down the track.
* If his hindquarters swing out at an angle to the wall, you’re just doing a leg yield in a shoulder-in position.

Are you sick and tired of complicated and confusing training techniques?
Are you frustrated by negative emotions like fear and lack of confidence?
Would you like to be trained by a Three Time Olympic Coach?
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Author: Jane Savoie
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I often hear riders at the basic levels say that their dressage horses are collected. I assume they’re confused and are actually talking about connection as opposed to collection.

But since I run across this confusion a lot, I want to take some time to explain how to evaluate whether or not a horse is collected.

Many people think that when a horse is collected, he just takes shorter, slower steps. But you can shorten a horse’s strides without actually collecting him.

Think about three things in terms of collecting any gait.

1. The steps are shortened, but the rhythm and tempo stay the same as they were when the steps were longer.

2. The center of gravity must shift back toward the hind legs. That is, there is a loading of the hind legs. In nature, a horse has approximately 60% of his weight on his front legs and 40% on his hind legs. As you collect the horse, you gradually shift that center of gravity back to the hind legs. As a result, the horse begins to take more weight on the hind legs so his forehead can be lighter and freer.

3. When a horse is collected he bends the joints of his hind legs. As a result, his croup lowers and his forehand elevates. Look at the top of his withers and compare it to the top of his croup. In this balance, he’ll have the silhouette or outline of an airplane taking off, or a seesaw where one end is pushed down and the other end goes up.

It’s very important you don’t get fooled into thinking that a horse with a high head and neck carriage is necessarily collected. That’s because if the horse is “hand-ridden”, the rider can lift his head and neck up. But if the rider does this, the withers will stay low. And if the withers are low and the croup is high, there is no collection.

So when you evaluate whether or not a dressage horse is truly collected think about those three things–a shortening of the frame, a loading of the hind legs, and the relative height of the top of the withers to the top of the croup.

Are you sick and tired of complicated and confusing training techniques?
Are you frustrated by negative emotions like fear and lack of confidence?v Would you like to be trained by a Three Time Olympic Coach?
Learn how by going to: http://www.janesavoie.com/ or http://www.dressagementor.com

Author: Jane Savoie
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When riding your dressage horse, it’s important to keep your hands in what I call the “work area”.

The “work area” is just in front of the saddle above the horse’s withers. Put your hands in that position and draw an imaginary box around them. That box is your work area.

No matter what rein aids you’re giving, keep your hands in the work area. If you bring your hands closer to your body, you steal power from the hind legs. If you put your outside hand forward, for example, you lose control of the outside shoulder.

If you raise or lower your hands, you break the straight line from the bit through your hand to your elbow. When you break that straight line, and there’s an angle where the rein meets your hand, the action of the rein stops there. That is, the action of the rein can’t travel through your arm and down your back so it can affect your horse’s back. It also can’t travel through the horse’s body and affect the hind leg on the same side.

Generally, many dressage riders tend to pull back by drawing their hands toward their bodies and behind their horse’s withers. If you tend to do that, here’s a simple tip to remind you to keep your hands FORWARD in the work area. Imagine there’s a basketball in front of your stomach. Keep your hands in front of the basketball. No matter how hard you try, you can’t draw your hands closer to your body because the basketball is in the way!

Are you sick and tired of complicated and confusing training techniques?
Are you frustrated by negative emotions like fear and lack of confidence?
Would you like to be trained by a Three Time Olympic Coach?
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Author: Jane Savoie
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“Get him on the bit!” “Rounder!” “Demonstrate self carriage!” “More impulsion!” You hear the commands from dressage (and event and hunter/jumper) instructors all the time. But sometimes the terms can be confusing and confused with other terms. Here, we’ll define a few basic terms, hopefully in a logical rather than alphabetical order, so you can get a better understanding of what your instructor wants you to do.

Self carriage: your goal to achieve is moving the horse in a correct and balanced frame without your horse relying on you to hold him there. In other words, he carries himself by himself. (This can be tested by giving with the reins as some horses just hold themselves in their riders hands.)

Resistance: when the horse resists the rider’s aids and refuses to do as asked.

Suppleness: when the horse responds to the rider’s request to bend and give flexion without resistance.

On the bit: the horse moves forward with energy into the rider’s hands. He accepts bit contact, even seeks contact with the rider’s hands. He is not resistant to contact. He doesn’t come above the bit with his head raised or suck back behind the bit, refusing contact.

Contact: constant communication with your horse via your hands through the reins to the bit. The feel is consistent, active and alive. Think of this as keeping the same weight in your hands.

Flexion/Roundness: bending with suppleness of the horse throughout his body (typically when referenced to mean the poll but also means neck, back, stifle and hock as well). Some refer to this as riding one’s horse round.
Bending/bend: when the horse creates a curve through his body from ear to through the spine to the tail. Bending creates more suppleness as well as engagement of the hind legs for lateral movements. Think of this as bending to the arc of an imaginary circle that you are riding on. Your bend is correct if you turn your head and look at the imaginary center of the circle and in your peripheral vision you see both your horse’s nose (seen by one eye) and hindquarter (seen by the other eye).

Engagement: think of this as tracking up well in the hind end but with added flexion in the hock and stifle. This causes the horse to “sit” more by lowering the haunches. To get proper engagement, you must ride your horse correctly on the bit, moving forward and working toward self carriage.

Lateral movements: movements such as the leg yield or shoulder in that require a horse to cross his legs while moving sideways and (typically) forward.

Impulsion: the forward energy. With the horse moving his hind legs well under him, “tracking up,” more thrust energy goes forward.

Suspension: Picture the passage in dressage…the lofty trot where the hooves seem off the ground more often than on. With greater suspension, more energy and collection take the horse’s energy upward more often than forward, though still moving forward. The horse’s stride appears shorter because there is more lift upward, more height, in the stride.

Collection: if you take a balanced horse in self carriage and add engagement so he his hocks flex well under him, impulsion so he is still moving with energy forward, and suspension, so the energy is collected from going more forward, you create a frame that has a shorter stride because of increased height. The haunches are lower and the frame is shorter. This is not to be confused with going slower as many novices think. There is still the same forward energy, just compacted, and sent upward. Think piaffe, the trot in place.

Through/Throughness/Traveling through: as the horse steps up well under himself with his hind legs, the energy travels up over his back, creating a round back with lifted belly, then over the top of his neck, creating a relaxed softly rounded neck, relaxed flexion at the poll, and down to the bit. It’s the route that the energy travels, and if the energy is blocked at any one place, the horse isn’t traveling through.

If that all sounds too confusing, just keep in mind the very basics first: go forward with relaxation and submission, and the rest will come.

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Some dressage horses don’t understand accepting contact with the bit and your hand. They are quick to go from coming above the bit to curling behind the bit. If that sounds like your horse, you need to be able to quickly and smoothly change your aids to help your dressage horse understand and accept contact.

When your horse comes above the bit, use connecting aids as follows.

1. Close both legs to send him forward toward a lengthening.

2. When you feel the “surge” of power coming from behind, close your outside hand in a fist to capture, contain, and recycle that power back to the hind legs.

3. If your horse starts to bend his neck to the outside, vibrate the inside rein to keep his neck straight.

As soon as he ducks behind the bit, send him “forward through his body”.

Here’s what I mean by that. Go on a circle in rising trot, close both legs and ask for a trot lengthening for 6 or 7 strides. Do this several times until it becomes a knee jerk reaction for him to go “forward over the ground” when you close your calves.

Then close your legs as if you’re going to do a trot lengthening, but don’t lengthen. This time you want your horse to go ” through his body” rather than “forward over the ground”. As you feel him go forward though his body and start to take a contact with your hand rather than curling behind the bit, praise him.

You might have to alternate a trot lengthening with asking him to take a contact with your hand several times. But once he understands, you’ll have a tool to use any time he comes too low in front.

This system works well for the horse that likes to go with his poll too low and his face behind the vertical, but if he’s curling so badly behind the bit that he’s ducking his chin toward his chest, you’ll have to be a bit more proactive as far as explaining correct contact to him.

If he’s curled behind the bit really badly, in addition to sending him forward through his body, you might have to raise your hands to place the bit out in front of him so he can step toward it.

The feeling is like putting a sheet on your bed. You lift the sheet up, and then let if softly drift onto the bed.

You can also think of it like doing “the wave” at a football game.

If you do have to raise your hands because your horse has dropped behind the bit, keep the following things in mind:

1. Always use your legs BEFORE you raise your hands.

2. Raise both hands evenly.

3. To the degree that you raise your hands, ALSO put them forward toward his mouth without losing contact. That is, if you lift your hands 2 inches, they must go forward 2 inches. If you lift them 4 inches, they must go forward 4 inches.

4. As soon as you’ve placed the bit out in front of your horse, put your hands back down. If you keep them up, he’ll curl behind the bit even more.

5. Keep a smooth, steady contact with his mouth throughout this whole process. Don’t let the reins get loose, drop contact with his mouth, and then snatch him up. That will discourage him from stepping toward the bit.

To sum up, for the dressage horse that alternates between coming above the bit and dropping contact to come behind the bit, smoothly switch from connecting aids to sending him forward through his body as needed until you’ve clearly explained the right connection to him.

Are you sick and tired of complicated and confusing training techniques? Are you frustrated by negative emotions like fear and lack of confidence? Would you like to be trained by a Three Time Olympic Coach? Learn how by going to http://www.janesavoie.com/ or http://www.dressagementor.com.

Author: Jane Savoie
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