At liberty, we can observe horses moving with complete freedom while maintaining a naturally collected outline. Such posture is only held for moments before returning to a more comfortable position. The head and neck are lowered and most of the weight is carried on the forehand. As primarily grazing animals, horses have evolved to carry most of their weight on the forehand. In order to balance their weight, they need freedom of their neck and head. A horse has his own natural balance, but when he is asked to carry a rider, he has to find a new balance point which takes several months or even longer.
Correctly training a horse to perform even basic movements with grace and beauty is not possible without taking his natural balance into consideration.When a horse moves in self-imposed collection, he will instinctively lift his back, using the right muscles, tendons, and ligaments throughout his body to directly support this posture. One of the most damaging things we can do when schooling is ask for an “outline”, especially for a young horse. A horse’s outline changes in relation to his physical and mental development, it is fluid in its form, and is something that will, with correct training, develop naturally over a period of years. To insist on it before the horse is ready will have an effect on the way he functions on an emotional, mental and physical level. Too much contact creates a short neck and destroys the horse’s natural balance. At the very least he needs time to organise his legs and adjust his vertebrae.
That’s not to say that a long neck is always preferable. Unless a horse is encouraged to seek contact with the rider’s hands, to lift a little, he will never learn to carry a rider in true balance or develop the muscles he needs to move comfortably within a more advanced frame. By that I mean being able to alter his centre of gravity, without artificial inducement, in order to carry less weight on his forehand.
We should always strive to maintain a light contact throughout the horse’s training. If it needs to be held to maintain a more desirable shape, it is likely that shortcuts will have been taken or the horse less established than we thought he was. Shorter contact should always be the by product of physical development, not the means by which physical development is achieved.
The amount of contact required to allow the horse to work with his neck in the optimal position depends on his level of training, mental and physical development. It’s really important to understand why the nose must always be in front of the vertical. When we force a green horse to work with a short contact, in an outline, the poll becomes stiff, encouraging him to bring his nose behind the vertical in an effort to evade the pain we are creating in his mouth and neck. This way of working produces a very uncomfortable posture for the horse as he struggles to support himself in an unnatural way. The neck vertebrae become stiff and tense, blood flow is inhibited and the horse’s ability to learn is impaired. It also causes changes in spatial awareness, depth perception etc and is a major cause of shying for no apparent reason. Throughout a horse’s training, we should encourage our horses to stretch their necks down and out, to seek our hands through the reins, to go long and low no matter how high their level of schooling.
As well as ‘long and low’ we use the term ‘deep and round.’ They are not the same thing as the latter is often achieved with side reins and running reins which can lead to an artificially lowered head and shortened neck. We are told that this lifts the back and stretches the spine as a result of the hind leg coming through, but when a horse is worked too deep in the neck, his back arches down, making the hind legs work harder to compensate. This produces too much movement in the stifle and the hock, and not enough in the body. The hind quarters can’t work in harmony with the forehand when the bridge between them, the back, is not moving. When the legs work like this, they hit the ground harder, causing concussion not only in the leg joints, but also in the hip and spine. Dressage is an art form and schooling is a system of education.It needs time and the right conditions to grow and flourish. Allowing our horses to work with their necks long and low is where it all begins.
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