Daily management tips to encourage good posture

Here are my top tips to help encourage good posture in your horses, and they are small things that you can be doing on a daily basis. Little and often is better than once a week! 

What do we mean by good posture?

Good posture in a horse is a strong toned core, which lifts the back. A strong and well muscled topline. A leg at each corner is a saying in the horse world, and good posture is also a leg at each corner of the horse, with the horse neither leaning over his forehand, or leaving his hindlimbs behind him. The neck held in a comfortable position – not high and tense, and not too low either. 

If your horse doesn’t have good posture he will likely have a weak and sore back and stiff choppy gait.

But we can change their posture for them, its not difficult, it just takes some daily actions!

I have other articles and posts about posture, back pain and engaging the horses core, so please take a look if you are interested!

So onto my top management tips that you can do daily to encourage good posture in your horse:

Turnout to grass: this might be a totally obvious one, but grazing stretches the topline of the horse, so even if your horse is on box rest or restricted turnout, hand grazing can be really valuable.

Feeding in variable positions in his stable: we always used to be told to feed hay from the floor as its the most natural eating position, but there is now research to suggest that having several small haynets at differing heights in the stable is a more healthier way of feeding, and replicates horses in the wild that would eat from the ground as well as eat bushes and trees from higher positions.

Teach your horse to lower his neck: if he has a high head carriage and a tight back, finding ways to teach him to lower his neck is important and will make him more comfortable over time.
Once you have taught him to lower his neck you can use this all the time, on your way to the field etc, so that he’s always lowering his neck and it becomes his new habit. I sometimes see how low I can get my horses neck while we are walking to the field….on a good day he will walk with his nose pretty much on the ground, this take a bit of practise, especially if there is grass on the way to the field!!

Carrot stretches! These really are THE BEST exercise you can do with your horses! I have an ebook available showing my 5 stretches in 5 minutes if you want to see HOW to do them properly!

Ebooks page: Ebooks

I hope this article helps and has given you a few ideas to help your horses posture!