HOW TO HELP THE HORSE YOU HAVE
Saddlebred gelding “He’s Magical” with owner Casey Blinn up.
Casey Blinn’s horse He’s Magical is by Walterway’s
Wild & Wooly out of Insignia by Yorktown Magic. Both his parents are sire-line descendants of Wing Commander, and he has multiple crosses to Stonewall King; but there are also two fairly close-up crosses to Supreme Sultan. We can assume by the cut of the saddle that Casey is interested in doing dressage or perhaps some eventing with him. She asks if this would be advisable or possible—or kind. I think it would be extremely kind, very advisable and certainly within the realm of possibility: But helping a horse who wants to drop his back as much as this one does takes dedication, patience and a knowledge of the appropriately
therapeutic riding techniques.
Magic is an attractive horse with many conformational points in his favor. He has an excellent hindquarter with a fairly large and well-shaped pelvis. The bone substance is excellent, and the hocks, knees and fetlocks are beautifully formed. I love long forearms on a horse, and he has those as well as the long thighs, long, steep arm and crisp shoulder typical of Saddlebreds.
Unfortunately, though, this horse—like many others—has acquired the habit of never going forward without first tightening his back. This is the main factor which causes him to hollow the topline— for it is contraction of the muscles of the topline which cause a hollow back. Note that the horse wants to go continually high-headed; tooerect carriage of the neck is a side effect of a tight topline. Dinking around with different bits, using devices such as training forks or German reins or the like will not help, because they address the wrong end of the horse’s anatomy. What the horse does in front is always the result of what he does in the rear. Magic will never go properly to the bit, or be able to respond properly to the aids of leg and seat, until he learns to relax the perivertebral muscles that run along either side of the spine from withers to croup. When that is accomplished, he will be able to coil his loins, and in the very moment that he gains this capability while under saddle, he will offer to go “long and low” in front all by himself, with no action on the rider’s part needed except to receive with sympathetic hands the elastic feel that he will then offer through the reins.
For her horse to round up and collect in the way this rider wants, she must teach him two things: First, that he can step forward without first tightening up; and once that is accomplished, to exert effort with the muscles of his abdomen and “core” to lift the center of the back. In short, contraction of muscles attached above the vertebral chain causes the back to hollow; contraction of muscles attached below the vertebral chain causes the back to round up.
Teaching the horse to relax his back before stepping forward is effected primarily through lateral bending at a walk. This at first means slow figures of eight—with an emphasis on having the circles that form the “8” perfectly round and of equal size. For a horse of about 15 hands, the diameter of the circles will initially need to be between 15 and 18 meters, depending on how stiff the horse actually is; as work progresses over a period of one to two years, the diameter should be progressively reduced down to 10, 8, or even 6 meters. When it gets to that point, the horse will also be able to perform perfect figure eights at a trot and canter.
The aspect of figure eights to pay most attention to is the step before X, the step at X, and the step just after X, during which the horse changes the curve in his spine from left to right or vice versa. At first this change will not feel at all smooth and the horse will have a noticeable preference for one spinal bend over the other. A major goal is to help the horse become
able to change bends fluidly, so that he comes to the point where he does not mind whether he works to the right or to the left.
The connection between figure eights and making the horse more laterally supple is obvious, but the connection between this and teaching him to go forward without tightening his back is more subtle. Realize that for the horse to flex enough to the left that he can smoothly create an 8- or 10-meter circle, he must release the perivertebral muscles that lie along the right side of his spine. If he can fluidly change from the left bend to the right, it implies that he can also switch from release on the right side of his body to release on the left. By the time he can do that, he has ipso facto learned to release the perivertebral muscles on both sides of the topline.
There are many variations on figure eights, e.g. circles in the corner, along the sides, or in the center of the arena, and serpentines or daisy-chains. As work progresses, the rider will also find leg-yielding helpful; little zigzags from quarter-line to quarter-line are fun and this horse, like most Saddlebreds, will be good at them. Again, it is the change from leg yield from right to left to leg yield left to right which is of the most physiotherapeutic benefit to the horse.
The abdominal and “core” muscles that raise the back are primarily addressed through riding “up” and “down” transitions, again mostly at the walk. In my school, horses are taught to step back one-step-at-a-time as soon as they are supple and relaxed enough that a mistake while attempting to step back will not cause them to want to rear. This type of goal-less backing—“goal-less” because the rider is only asking for one step and then the next, not for the horse to go anywhere in a backwards direction—turns on the powerful “core” muscles (the iliopsoas complex) whose contraction coils the loins.
Yes, I know: It all seems so simple, almost minimalist; but the exercises suggested above have worked wonders on many horses. For further ideas and to see these techniques in action, I suggest Mike Schaffer’s books and videotapes.
I have two other suggestions for Casey. The first relates to the state of her own back. Casey has a typically feminine curvy figure. Unfortunately, this often goes with the rider having a tendency to sit too far forward on her crotch (sitting “on the fork”) while also hollowing her own back. Here Casey will find Sally Swift’s classic books most helpful, and she might also be able to arrange some sessions with a certified Sally Swift instructor who can help her learn the feel that comes when the rider’s own perivertebrals are released, and what it feels like to sit properly upon the seat bones. (See a reprint of my 1989 EQUUS article on this subject titled “Who’s Built Best to
Ride: Men or Women?” at www.equinestudies.org under “Knowledge Base.”)
The second suggestion relates to saddle fit. Because they have such high withers, it can be very difficult to find a dressage, combination, or jumping saddle to fit a Saddlebred. The Western saddle Casey is using fits fine, but the English saddle does not fit. It continually wants to slide backwards, because the gullet is too shallow for this horse and the fore-arch is too narrow and the bars do not have sufficient flare. This tempts Casey to over-tighten the girth in an attempt to hold the saddle in place—which causes the tree to gouge into his back—which in turn adds to the gelding’s desire to tighten and drop his back in order to get away from the discomfort. The right solution is, instead, to find a saddle built on a tree that has the correct shape. Hundreds of our readers have had similar difficulty in finding a saddle to fit their horse: An educational video on the topic of saddle fit can be purchased online at www.aboutthehorse. com. Click on “video/pads” and then look for the “About Saddle Fit” DVD.