Help! Please explain what this means!

Barbara F · Grand Prix

Help! Please explain what this means!

helyn · Yearling

You are opposing fiction to reality. The article explains what happens when the neck is lowered. The reality is thatlowering the horse’s neck, you are increasing the weight on the forelegs, stiffening the whole spine and in particular the lumbar vertebrae and altering the proper kinematics of the horse’s hind legs. You are using terms, swinging loose gaits, rich with a soft arch into the bridle, which are fiction. They are cute metaphors and suggest that you are meaning well in your mind but this is not at all what happens in the horse’s body. In order to create the body coordination that would allows the horse to perform with ease, you have to move away from the thought that performances can be created through stretching and looseness of the horse’s thoracolumbar spine because this not the way the horse’s thoracolumbar spine does functions. This was already know in 1979 with the work of Hans Carlson and demonstrated since by every research study focusing on the subject.
Jean Luc

spirithorse · Advanced

I am talking about lowering the mid-neck and getting that swinging loose gait that comes when the horse reaches into the bridle, the hind legs are engaged and the back comes up.

The back does not raise nor the hindquarters engage when the neck is lowered. The neck is connected to the withers, shoulders and chest; the back is a suspended torso; the hindquarters are connected to the back.

The only way a horse will raise it's back with a rider is for the rider to give the appropriate leg aids that cause the horse to respond with the natural raising and flexing of the back using the muscle structure of the torso.

When this occurs the hindquarters will become correctly engaged.

Jackie Cochran · Advanced

The Duke of Newcastle, Pluvinel, de la Gueriniere, etc. did NOT use the down, low, neck stretch in their physical conditioning and training for the dressage horse. This is a MODERN method, not classical dressage.
As far as I can tell NO ONE in educated riding (except maybe fox-hunters) even let their horses do this until modern times. Back in the time of Classical dressage the horse's heads were expected to be UP and flexed at the poll during the manege ride.

In Forward Seat we let the green horse pick his head carriage, and it is expected for horses to carry their heads down until they get their back muscles strong enough to carry the rider, then, gradually, the horse, on his own, raises his head carriage. I can easily see that the green horse lowers its head to STIFFEN THE SPINE under the weight of the rider. Forward Seat riders do not mind stiffened spines, we want our horses to be able to gallop fast and jump easily, and a relaxed back has no place in the faster gaits. I see the spine of an extended horse like a spear, not a willow branch.

The Forward Seat does not encourage the flexions of the hind end (croup, hip, stifle, hock, pastern) and it encourages the swing of the hind leg forward and back like a pendulum as the horse moves. After good training has been accomplished we often let the horse stretch his neck but I tend not to TELL the horse to stretch his neck out, this is the horse loosening his neck, not me proving that I can place the horse's head wherever I want to whenever I want to. Loose swinging relaxed gaits are proper for riding cross-country horses in extension, loose swinging gaits are an energy efficient way of covering ground. When the hind legs swing like pendulums the hindquarter's joints are not flexing very much, it is like the horse pole vaults over his legs. Note that it is the LEGS that swing, not the back! Quite the opposite to the collected movements with springy hind leg joints, when the horse's feet move more up and down (flexions) than backwards and forwards without the joints flexing as much. The hind legs in collected gaits are much more like a pogo stick than a pendulum.

I suspect that getting the horse to move with a long and low neck with its head BEHIND VERTICAL gives the rider an illusion of back relaxation and rounding. As Jean Luc points out this is not correct movement though it may feel smoother and easier to ride. It can feel so pleasant that it is very easy for the rider to get seduced by it and to think that it is so smooth and easy to ride that it MUST BE correct. This is wrong, correct riding is not easy. Once I realized that my riding improved.

I recommend Jean Luc's books. It has been through reading and re-reading his books that I finally started understanding him. These books are not very long, and Jean Luc has used all the words and pictures in his blogs and on his web site, it is just easier for me to learn from a book, plus in the book the pictures are bigger and easier to study.

barnfrog · Advanced

(As I read what JLC/helyn says:) I agree with JLC, but then I not only only read the works which he quotes, (learned to ride) rode during the same period of time (with the same type of masters), but observsed horses trained by the myriad of methods over more than 50 years. If the eyes are used, and gaits observed, the horse tells the truth. Then it is letting the horse tell its truth (a great 25 year biomechanical study is that of Nancy Nicholsen also....which let the horse tell the truth...rather than the GIGO studies often undertaken to 'prove a premise'). And the most wierd thing is that people use the 'urban myth' of a gentleman (Theis) about Uphoff/Remmie from the 80s to defend it. One only has to WATCH horses ridden by different methods to SEE the truth.

Even more problematically is horses which are started and held (by the actions of the hand) into a steadily neck lowered posture which does cause weight onto the forehand. And such a contaction (of the neck/belly) does decrease the movement of the lumbar back (and then their riders are even more btv), and does weight the forelegs and DECREASES length of stride (horses do land where the nose points). Any 'swinging of the gaits' is usually increasing the 'leg mover' actions which truckates the gait (ie breaks the diagonalization/etc.

Traditional training only used fdo/aka chewing the bit from the hand as a TEST of correct mobilization of the jaw and willingness to open the throatlatch and certainly never lower than horizontal and ONLY for a few strides (a circle at most)...and never as a basis for 'working balance'.

It is the CHEST which is suspended in a 'sling of muscles' not the back. The spine and hindquarters (pelvis) do have a fixed point.

Certainly rasing the mid neck (aka third vertebrae body) as the highest point (which requires a btv posture in horse and/or rider) only contacts the belly into leveraged chest lifting. The feeling of this ttype of 'back lifting' is lumbar raising from stiffened hindleg joints rather than the withers lifting. Worse yet the rider can HEAR the horse hit the ground (and feel it in their own backs).

Those who have not felt/ridden a horse which has the withers lifted and a 'jet taking off uphill' posture(like the beginning of a bascule over fences...which many no longer learn to do), are told to recognize/tricked into thinking and feeling the lumbar back upward is the right feeling (in their own backs).

Using the legs into the belly does not create a proper posture, the BALANCE THE HORSE IS RIDDEN INTO does.

(As I understand what jackie said...) Clearly Jackie does not use the same forward seat (a la caprilli) as I was taught, but rather more that of Littaur (who thought that since the average rider could not ride to collection that they should let the horse 'be').

IF a horse is ridden actively forward into a light connection they WILL stay up and open. They ARE strong (in their backs), they CAN carry the rider. Just not yet for long periods of time. It is the mouth and BELLY which stiffens under the beginning of weight under rider because the chest to drop, the bit acts incorrectly, and the rider does not know how to correct those reactions. It was interesting that in a recent young horse symposium (in which a student presented her horse), that the clinican said this horse was THE most correct in his movement....but then he said the horse could be ridden up and open because he was so strong in the back. But the fact is he was strong in the back and pure in the gaits BECAUSE he was ridden up and open and IN BALANCE in the FIRST PLACE.

The very act of riding a horse (up) to the hand DOES encourage flexion of the hindleg joints. IF the legs merely 'more like a pendulum' nothing changes in balance, they push the load, and if they move their legs like a pendulum with a closed/low posture they only push the load and raise the lumbar spine (which decreases their range of movement)/shorten the stride length at which time the rider is told more forward/more forward).

A horse only 'lengthen its topline' properly IF the horse chews fdo, otherwise. Pendulum like movement does not produce air time, ease of jumping (flatter bascule).

In any case, from riding horses at a top level produced both ways, the de jour horses are very uncomfortable to sit, heavy in the hand (or behind it), and usually not willing partners (and worse yet a combination of obedience produced with tension (which is blamed on their bloodlines)). And if we are training to show, not according to those very guidelines either. I am lazy physically: I want light and easy (but mentally riding a horse in balance requires constant focus on the effects of the seat and plans for our actions and the horse's reactions). MHO.

Barbara F · Grand Prix

BUT This seems to be a completely opposite approach, which is put forward as valid and making sense from that point of view, or am I misinterpreting one approach or the other?http://www.barnmice.com/video/how-to-engage-your-horse-s-back

Oh, by the way, my two cents: I don't ride my current horse with a low neck or a deep neck, but he likes to stretch for a few minutes at the end of the ride and I haven't found it to be detrimental.

I used to warm up a former horse with a lower and rounder frame (not strung out, not on the forehand, not rollkur, just a lower neck. He could be spooky and inattentive and for that particular horse, it was an excellent warm-up and got him focused, moving beautifully, very connected and soft. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm open to working different horses in different frames depending on what they need physically and mentally.

Anyway, pls watch this video and let me know what you think.

-- Edited by Barbara F on Thursday 19th of January 2012 06:50:18 PM

-- Edited by Barbara F on Thursday 19th of January 2012 07:01:54 PM

barnfrog · Advanced

That vid says a lot of correct things, that then does something completey differently. It is one thing to ask the horse to chew fdo, it is another to ride them low on loose reins or btv. Ride the horse into the balance you want it (and that recommended by the rules/directives), and the allow them to drape as a cool out (but too low and they get stuck...and that is why we see SO much over tempo go go go stuff to 'fix' what the rider caused.)

Barbara F · Grand Prix

barnfrog wrote:
That vid says a lot of correct things, that then does something completey differently. It is one thing to ask the horse to chew fdo, it is another to ride them low on loose reins or btv. Ride the horse into the balance you want it (and that recommended by the rules/directives), and the allow them to drape as a cool out (but too low and they get stuck...and that is why we see SO much over tempo go go go stuff to 'fix' what the rider caused.)

Agreed about the loose reins, but not sure what fdo stands for?

Interesting that you mention the over tempo. I see it sometimes with people driving and driving and the horse running long and low. Can you elaborate a bit on what you mean by "stuck" in that particular scenario? Thanks!

barnfrog · Advanced

Fdo=forward/down/out (aka chewing the reins from the hand...the movement in the test to check the mobility of the jaw and the willingness to follow the descente de main).

If a horse is taken closed/low by action of the hand (and does not open the throatlatch), they start to slow down (also because they ARE onto the forehand). Then the rider thinks the horse wants to stop (they do, but they are merely doing what the rider asks), and so they drive them off their feet. Then you see GP hroses running on extensions (w/o tracking up or over traking) just to stay upright (and therefore pushing the load and hyperextending the forelegs.

Barbara F · Grand Prix

Thanks Barnfrog.

I don't see that kind of riding at our barn (thank goodness!) but I do see it all over the place. A lot comes down to the education of the instructors and to what they see as correct.

Barnmice Admin · Well Schooled

I have deleted several of the posts here.

This is a very interesting topic on training approaches. Let's keep it focused on that.

Thank you.