TRAINING SERIES PART 4: The fine line between 'working over the back' and 'being on the forehand'!

Developing Correct Movement, Training Series Part 4: The fine line between ‘working over the back’ and ‘being on the forehand’! 

This is a training exercise where you need to ‘get your eye in’ so to speak! 

In Part 2 of this blog series, I talked about horses being heavy on the forehand, and that we can positively affect this in the horses body! Part 3 was about why we seek long and low posture in the horse. 

This weeks blog is looking at both of those points together in the body.

So once we have developed long and low posture (well done if you have!), we need to then ensure that our horse isn’t just getting heavy on the forehand due to the lowered head and neck - and this is actually really easy for the horse to do due to them having an uneven forehand/hindquarter weight distribution! 

We have the 60/40 weight distribution in the horses body with around 60% of their weight over the forehand, so unless we are specifically working on that, the horse will likely default to ‘on the forehand’! 

Post 2 in this series talks about the thoracic sling, if the horse has a weak thoracic sling, it’s going to be difficult to get them off the forehand, even if we have managed to conquer ‘long and low’. 

So this is about your horse learning and being trained to carry himself first. Not falling heavy onto the forehand, but developing true core strength so that he can lift his wither in between the scapula, not just lower the neck and let the weight fall forwards. 

And again this is an important part of horse movement within exercise, that we need to understand and be able to work on as we get further along in our training. And crucially important if we are going through rehabilitation of movement. 

Question: does your horse go too fast and you struggle with downward transitions or halt, even though they look to be ‘working over the back’? This is a sign that your horse is too heavy in the forehand and not actually engaging his core properly and lifting his own forehand and therefore lifting at the wither. 

I hope you are enjoying this series of blog posts on developing correct movement! Do have a look at the previous posts in this series, and if you would like to receive the blog direct to your inbox every week (it's a series of 10!!), you can sign up in the side bar on this blog page! 

***AND if you want to learn how to apply specific Core Mobilisation and Core Activation Exercises to your horses routine, to help develop a stronger core, improved posture, and a strengthened thoracic sling...take a look at my Core Exercises Online Course here: Core Exercises Online Course