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Help Your Stiff Horse Bend
01/16/2009 - By Jane Savoie
Jane Savoie
Is your horse harder to bend in one direction than the other? Here are some simple exercises to help him become more "ambidextrous".
HOW DO I HELP MY STIFF HORSE BEND?
You can help your stiff horse bend better by using benign antagonism.
Remember, benign antagonism is just a training philosophy that allows you
to custom design your program for each and every horse. It simply means
that you kindly and quietly do the opposite of whatever your horse chooses
to do on his own. For example, if your horse likes to carry his head too high,
then you ride him “deep”. If he likes to put his head on the ground, then you
ride him ”up”. If your horse likes to go too fast, then you work him in a slow
tempo.
So, in part 4, I’m going to talk about horses that have trouble bending in one
direction. Few horses are ambidextrous—meaning they can bend as easily to
the right as to the left. So, using benign antagonism, you’ll make your
horse’s soft side more “stiff” and his stiff side more “soft” and bendable.
How Do I Make the Stiff Side “Softer”?
Riders tend to think that the stiff side is the "bad" side because it feels harder
for them to bend their horses when that side is on the inside. But you need to
think outside the box. The stiff side is not the problem. Your horse feels stiff
to the right because the muscles on the left side of his body are shortened
and contracted.
The benign antagonism solution to this problem is to stretch those shortened
muscles on the left side by riding your horse with too much bend when you
track to the right. In schooling, you'll live in "right bend" until you feel the
muscles on his left side elongate. (You'll know those muscles are stretching
because it'll feel easier to bend your horse to the right.)
So, let’s track to the right—the stiff (hard, strong) side. The main reason
your horse feels stiff to the right is because the muscles on his left side are
shortened and contracted. These shortened muscles limit how much he can
stretch his left side and bend around your right leg.
Here’s an exercise to gently stretch and elongate the muscles on the left side
(the hollow side) of your horse’s body.
• If your horse is really stiff, do the exercise in the walk.
• Go on a large circle to the right.
• Pick a point somewhere along the arc of the circle, and turn onto a 6-
meter circle.
• While on the small circle, think about your bending aids. (Put your
weight on your right seat bone, keep your right leg on girth, place
your left leg behind girth, flex your horse to the right by turning the
key in the lock with your right wrist, and support with your left hand.)
• Ride the 6-meter circle a couple of times until your horse’s body
conforms to its arc.
• Once he’s bending, keep applying the 6-meter bending aids, but blend
back onto the 20-meter circle,
• If it gets difficult for your horse to stay bent this much to the right,
blend back onto a 6-meter circle. The idea is to ride the 20-meter
circle with a 6-meter bend.
• Once you can do this on a circle, try riding straight down the long side
with your horse bent as if he’s on the arc of a 6-meter circle. (The
feeling is a bit like doing shoulder-in in front and haunches-in behind
at the same time.)
When you go down the long side, bend your horse to the right from nose to
tail as if he's on the arc of a circle. Be sure you bend him behind your leg as
well as in his neck.
How Do I Make the Hollow Side “Stiffer”?
The flip side of this "stiff to the right" issue is that your horse will be hollow
or soft to the left. You might think his soft side is his "good" side because he
feels easier to bend, but the hollow side of your horse needs help as well. On
the hollow side, your horse doesn't have true bend-equal from poll to tail. He
usually overbends the neck to the inside and places his inside hind leg to the
inside of his line of travel. By doing so, he can avoid bending the joints of
his inside hind (engagement), and he also doesn't carry as much weight on it.
As a result, that leg gets weaker, and your horse develops unevenly.
My benign antagonism solution for this problem is to ride without any bend
at all when the hollow side is on the inside. Keep your horse as straight as he
is on the long side even when you go through corners and circles. Think that
his body is like a bus that can't bend on turns.
• Let’s say your horse is hollow (soft, weak) on his left side. When
circling to the left, ride without any bend at all. Keep his body as
straight as a bus.
• To get a perception of straightness, halt somewhere on the long side.
Make your horse’s body parallel to the long side all the way from poll
to tail.
• Also, ride him either with no flexion (His chin is lined up with center
of his chest.) or in counter-flexion (-1). In counter-flexion, his face
will be 1 inch to the right.
• Ride through corners and circles with no bend through his body and
in counter-flexion at his poll. If you ride in this position, your
horse’s left hind leg will step underneath his body.
• This will make that leg stronger over time. (This exercise is only for
schooling-- not for competition.)
If you use this philosophy of benign antagonism, you'll find that you rarely
get stuck solving training issues. Invite your horse to do the opposite of what
he chooses until it becomes easy for him. Once that happens, settle back into
a happy medium.
