Part 1 on bend: introduction to concepts.

Over the next few months, I really want to work on proper bending.

All our work on leg yielding focused on flexion, but to do proper corners, shoulder fores, and lead changes, you have to have a proper bend.

What is the difference between bend and flexion? Bend refers to the arc of the horse's entire body, while flexion is just focused on the horse's neck and jaw. A horse can be straight through the body, but flexed through the neck such as during a leg yield and still be correct and balanced. A horse that is flexed left, however, but bend right in the body, is crooked.

Different horses have different degrees of bendability. A longer necked horse will usually have more ability to flex its neck laterally, and a longer backed horse will usually have more ability to arc its body. Unless injured though, all horses will be more bendable in front of the withers (neck and jaw) than behind the withers (rib cage and pelvis). A proper bend will have the horse bent fluidly from ears to tail, which means the rider often has to limit the arc in the neck, to the amount the body can be flexed.

Most of you will notice your horse flexes and bends more easily one way that the other. This is because, just like people, more horses have a dominant side. Again, just like people, the typical horse is right side dominant. A right sided horse will typically favour their left lead (because they push off from their right hind when cantering to the left), but will prefer trotting to the right, and will bend better to the right. Why? Because the right side is stronger, and so tighter, and the horse will want to bring that right hind up and under more to its midline, which will tighten that right side.

Humans and horses are thought to have dominant sides to increase reaction times: when you have one side clearly favoured by the brain, your reaction will be to use that side without a second though...if both sides were equal there may be a moment of indecision while deciding which hand/leg to move with first, resulting in precious loss of time.

You will hear me refer to "soft side" and "stiff side". As per above, the horse will typically be soft (more bendable) to the right, and stiffer to the left...even though it is actually kind of reversed.

This of it this way:

 

 

Think of the muscles on the left being like a soft stretched out spring: not very strong and so easy to stretch. The muscles on the right are like a tightly coiled and strong spring. For the horse, this would mean that they are always wanting to be tipped a little to the right to feel even muscle wise. Similarly for the rider to feel they have even tension/contact on both sides of the mouth, they will want to have a shorter rein on the right side, which will just perpetuate the issue.

 

For the horse this will feel normal and straight as this is how they would carry themselves when left to their own devices, the problem is that for arena work, in particular dressage and jumping, we need the horse to be more even on both sides, so that they jump evenly, corner equally well, and can change leads both ways fluidly.

 

 

It is up to the rider to help the horse stretch out that tight/strong right side, and be more bendable to the left. How to do this, will be covered in Part 2 and beyond!

 

Karen

 

 



 

 

 

 

This week in lessons

The weather made last week pretty quiet, but I thought the grid was a good plan to really help rider's focus on their position, and further work on staying out of the horse's way. A grid helps in two ways: as we are trotting in there is no concern about a good distance, and secondly, because the jumps come up fairly quickly, any rider's mistakes build and are easier to see, while still allowing time to be corrected before the end of the grid.

This week we will again to a grid, but it will flow into a simple course. We are going to be focusing mostly on leg position, and proper angles. A common issue is for rider's to open their leg position too much, allowing their seat to come too far out of the saddle, resulting in being ahead of the motion. This puts additional weight on the horse's front end, and can lead to the horse landing too quickly, or even hitting rails with the front end.  The upper body jumping ahead is usually coupled with the lower leg sliding back, so often the jumping ahead can be addressed by keeping the lower leg forward. Shortening the stirrups for jumping can also be a help.

A rider should just maintain a two point, and then allow the horse's jump to close their hip angle...but easier said than done!

I will have neck straps available for anybody who is having trouble grabbing mane, as having a stable hand will really help keep the entire upper body, and as a result leg, more stable.

Anybody who wants me to video them through the grid should bring their camera/phone and remind me to video: watching what you are doing, so you can match what you feel with reality, is a great way to make improvements.

Karen

A morning suprise

I am a morning person. Even on cold mornings like this week, it is my favourite time of day: peaceful and full of promise. That does not mean however, that I am fully awake by the time I get out to do morning chores.

Take for example the day Phelps showed up: my sleep deprived brain tried to process if he could be ginger, Amarillo, or even a Coyote...but even that tired my brain could process that none of the above would be nearly that rough looking., and so I called Rob to inform him we had a guest...or that I was hallucinating.

Rob got a similar call this morning.

My routine in the morning is to leave the house before 7am with the dogs, then go to the hay shed, and take hay to the geldings (even though they have a round bale, I like to put out some flakes for them). As I was spacing out the hay, the three geldings that overnight in that paddock, wandered over, but I could see a dark shape laying in the snow my the horse shelter closest to the barn.

At first I thought it could be a horse, but then realized all were accounted for, then I thought maybe some poor beggar lost his blanket, but no, they were all clothed...which is when I called Rob "either I am hallucinating, or there is a deer sleeping in the horse shelter".

So I walked around the shelter and got closer (remember it is still dark at 7am), and saw Phelps snorfling in the snow just outside the fence, and sure enough, there was a critter laying in the snow by the horse shelter closest to the barn. My brain was then wondering if it was perhaps a 4H Jersey calf, but obviously to an awake brain that would make no sense...how would a calf get in there? But then I started to worry it was hurt and would need to be put down, so got even closer...I was only about 2 meters away when the doe decided to vacate her warm nest and loped over to the fence, crawled through the fence into Dexter's pen, then through that pen, then opted to go through the fence in the worst place possible (where the cross bracing is), got stuck causing Dexter, Percy, and now Phelps to get really excited, but fortunately got free of the fence uninjured, and before any of them got to it.

I kind of wonder what the horses would have done had they got to the trapped deer? It seems Shawn, Rocket and Zander had make their peace with it hanging out with them, as they had all been around that shelter when I first went out.

It was interesting once I got the inside horses all turned out: Riley & Wolfgang spent a lot of time sniffing the deer nest and then prancing around like fools.

The poor dear likely thought it had found Utopia until I disturbed it: hay, water and shelter all so convenient! I wonder if it will come back? It should move in with Dani and Missy though, as I think it was a doe. I wonder if this means Shawn will no longer go on deer alert when ridden outside in the summer?

Karen

Snow

I will admit to having some concern when I woke up on Saturday to see that much snow! It seemed like particularly bad timing for the tack sale...but as it turns out it wasn't so bad after all. Having people cancel from the first lesson of the morning allowed me more time to set up all the tack Hillside & customers had for sale as there was LOTS of stuff. It did keep the other consigners from coming, which likely disappointed some shoppers, and there were a fair number of shoppers! No saddles sold, but $500 worth of other stuff did, so I know my tack room will be cleaner for it!

I will take time this week to take pictures of much of the remaining items to sell either on Kijiji or perhaps even ebay.

This week is supposed to be nasty cold, so the lesson plan will be such that the horse's won't work too hard and get overly sweaty. It may involve no stirrup work... it may also involve working on shoulder fore at the walk. Shoulder fore is a moderate shoulder in: the horse is bent in off the track, its haunches stay on the track, but its shoulder is brought in slightly...more or less like the first step off the track to start a circle, but instead of circling, you keep the horse moving down the track.

The rider must keep their outside leg back, but passive, the inside leg active at the girth both for bend, and for forward momentum. The rider must keep their belly button looking down the track, but their shoulders looking in (just like the horse!). The inside hand should come off the neck to ask for the bend with an active hand, while the outside hand blocks the horse from turning.

For jumping, we may do a grid and further work on position and good hand position.

Karen

And another one gone..

I took Rocky over to his new home today: he went to his breeder's daughter, which is kind of a nice bookend to his life. Hard to think that we had him for 10 years! We got him as a green broke 9 year old, and then taught him to jump. He was never the best for a lesson horse, as he was a tad opinionated and let people know they annoyed him by kicking out...and wasn't keen on standing to be mounted...but boy does he like to jump. He was also my go to fun trail horse and I used him to pony young horses when I was doing more training.

To get him to his new home I decided to ride him over as it seemed silly to hook up the trailer for a mere mile. As per my usual style on Rocky I rode him over bareback and it was so much fun...I can't imagine Izzy ever getting to the point where I will trust her down a busy rode bareback! Of course  also can't imagine her with Rocky's copious hair which is pretty much guaranteed to keep me on...so a little sad to leave him at his new home, but I think it is the perfect next home for him as he is nowhere near ready to retire!

With Rocky and Gody both gone though, that paddock seemed far to empty, and Zander seemed unimpressed to be stuck with Dexter all on his own, so I moved Dexter over to be with Percy and Magnus, and opened the gate so Zander could be in with Shawn and friends. Hopefully the horses hang out near the barn side at night so that they aren't hard to find, but it will for sure make turnout easier, as they are all just outside the barn!

I have started organizing for the tack sale, and it reminds me a bit of being a little kid and playing store...lots of good stuff for sale, and I have colour coded tags for different price points to make it easier for people to look for things in their budget.

Now of course I worry about having enough shoppers come out! Not sure if the bad weather forecast will keep  them away...but I hope not!

Karen

This week...

As most of you know, Gody left last Friday to his new home in Crowsnest pass. He is now owned by a giggly 12 year old and I am happy for him. Rocky will likely leave on Thursday or Friday depending on the weather...it is going to seem strange without them both!

The tack sale is this Saturday from 11-3! Lots of good deals on riding clothes and tack. Hillside clients are welcome to shop early as I will have our stuff displayed first thing. If anyone is available to help with the sale from 11-11:30 that would be great too, as I will be teaching until 11:30. I am hoping to sell enough of the stuff we don't use to update some of the tack for the lesson horses. I already bought a new bridle for Zander that I am hoping will fit him better. Rocket would like a new light weight winter blanket and new halter, so lets hope we sell enough to cover his wish list.

Lessons this week will be short courses working on leaving the horse alone at the jump, while still controlling them for inside turns or lead changes over the fence. Turns will be trickier, and jumps will come up sooner...but I still want you to do less, and let the horse look after the jumps!

For flat work, we are doing a zig-zag leg yield: coming off the track, changing their flexion, and leg yielding back to the track. Really important you keep control of their shoulder for this to work, or the change of direction will be difficult! If posting, remain on the "normal" diagonal to come off the wall, then switch to the opposite diagonal to go back to the wall.

Karen

And the only one who was scared was Izzy...

So much for my spooky Halloween jumps! The only horse that gave them more than a passing glance was nutty Izzy. Kitten appreciated them at least.

This week I am going to try harder to create a jump that will cause some reactions from the horses! The plan is to create a jump so rider's can work on feeling when they CAN leave their horse alone to the jump, and when they should support the ride a little more. We are still going to follow the idea of setting them up for success and then leaving them alone, and then correcting the issue if one comes up, but in the case of a spooky jump, that correction may have to come in front of the jump in the form of correcting a rushing horse by taking with the reins, correcting a backed off horse with a cluck, kick or tap with the crop, or correcting a wiggly horse with leg and hand. Regardless though, we want to make sure we leave the horse mostly alone at the jump so they do not feel punished for jumping, or interfered with at the jump.

Flat work will involve leg yielding again, but leg yielding OFF the track. This is harder in some ways as the horse has less of an idea of the plan, and is more likely to get stuck to the wall, but easier in some ways as you are more likely to be straight prior to starting the leg yield, and the horse is less likely to get crooked as it doesn't have a wall to get crooked towards! We are going to be leg yielding towards a target and it is SO important that you actually LOOK towards the target and time your leg yield to get to the target at the right time, no sooner or later. This helps prevent the horse from feeling overly pressured and getting stuck or crooked as a result.

Stay warm and watch out for the ice!

Karen

For Joan

Hey Joan! If your current career path doesn't pan out, you can always try costume design:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O6ZjF-Kkl4&feature=youtu.be