TRAINING SERIES PART 7: Developing bend

7. Developing bend  

I have talked about natural crookedness in some of the previous posts in this series, and the horses crookedness pattern links to bend too. Your horse will be able to bend more easily in one direction than the other, and this is part of their natural crookedness pattern affecting body and limbs. 

In the crooked horse, if they are heavy on the forehand, and their body and limbs puts them into bend in one direction and unable to bend in the opposite direction, again we end up with uneven movement and uneven wear and tear on the musculoskeletal structures, affecting the whole body. 

Developing bend is not quite as simple as it sounds! It’s like the earlier ‘on the forehand’ posts…is your horse working in good long and low posture, or actually getting heavy on the forehand due to lowering the head and neck? With bend, are they actually bending and rotating through the ribcage allowing the inside hind to step under the body, or is the body remaining straight and they are just tipping onto the inside forelimb and creeping onto a smaller circle? 

Again this is the level of movement that you will need to train your eye to! But it’s important for your horses soundness and longevity! 

Overall we are looking for the horse to take his weight more equally over the 4 limbs, and over time develop more carrying power in the hindlimbs to lighten the forehand further. 

Working in hand you can really get a true picture of your horses patterns, so I always recommend some level of in hand work to incorporate into your exercise routine with your horse, whatever you do with your horse in terms of exercise/competition. You can learn so much about their body, their crookedness pattern, their avoidances, stiffnesses, then work out why they struggle with certain movements or types of exercise, and then work to correct and improve these patterns in the body at the foundation level, over time. 

Also adding core flexibility and strengthening exercises into your routine help to equalise the body over time, so that each side of the body is able to bend more symmetrically, due to the exercises helping with joint mobility, stiffness, muscular tension through the neck and body. 

***In the image, I am working with my horse Azuro, on asking him to move into the left fore so that there is more 'space' created for the right hind (his stiffer hind) to move into, along that diagonal line/pair. On this rein, I also work on his direction of travel around the circle, he tends to fall in on his right rein, making a smaller circle than on the left rein, so I need to regularly remind him to open the left shoulder and stay on the circle that I map out for him! 

***If you would like my help with adding any of this to your routine with your horse, take a look at my Online Courses, which includes: Massage, Core Exercises, In Hand Exercises...Click here for Online Training Courses