01/10/2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnuqEt17bGA&feature=youtu.be**Frankie
16 Years Old, Former Polo Pony | Rebuilding Balance, Movement & Trust
This video shows the current training progress of Frankie, a now 16-year-old gelding who came to me about six months ago, primarily because of behavioural problems.
In everyday handling, Frankie could be very disrespectful towards his owner and would sometimes push into her or even knock her over. He could become extremely impatient and frustrated whenever he felt that his human did not understand what he was asking for.
But Frankie is a horse who **wants to work**. He is an incredibly hardworking horse — and I believe that understanding what was happening in his body was the key to understanding his behaviour.
Frankie's conformation does not make carrying a rider particularly easy. He has a very long back, a somewhat unfavourable hindquarter construction and relatively short front legs. Over the years, he developed a movement pattern that allowed him to avoid repeatedly hitting his own front feet with his hind legs.
Instead of moving in a correct diagonal trot sequence, Frankie learned to keep his knee joints almost straight and move his hind legs laterally past his front legs, producing a pace-like movement. This long-established compensation created considerable muscular tension and, very likely, physical discomfort.
His canter is also affected by this altered movement pattern. His front legs tend to remain very close to the ground, and because of the stiffness in his knees, he cannot lift the forehand sufficiently to produce a clear, freely jumping canter. Carrying a rider naturally makes this even more difficult.
This is why I believe that what looked like a behavioural problem was, at least to a significant degree, a horse expressing discomfort and frustration within his own body.
It is another reminder of something I consider fundamental in classical horse training:
**Physical and mental balance cannot really be separated.**
A horse that is physically tense and uncomfortable will have a much harder time finding mental relaxation, balance and contentment.
# # # Six months of rebuilding from the ground
During the past six months, I have worked extensively with Frankie from the ground, particularly through lunging and carefully structured transitions.
The goal has not been to force a "correct" movement, but to give him a new physical possibility: to learn to bring his inner hind leg more underneath his centre of gravity instead of stepping around and past the weight.
His knee joints are still very stiff, and after so many years of compensatory movement, I do not expect that we will ever restore completely normal mobility.
But we can still work towards **the best possible mobility and balance for Frankie**.
Transitions from walk to trot are an important part of this work. When Frankie manages to flex the large joints of his hindquarters and place his hind legs further underneath himself, something very interesting happens: his forehand becomes lighter, and he is able to lift his front legs more freely.
This gradually gives him the possibility of finding a more regular trot rhythm and a more functional canter.
We are not there yet.
My medium-term goal is for Frankie to become sufficiently mobile and balanced that he no longer needs to use his long back muscles and under-neck muscles as opposing forces simply to keep himself balanced.
At the moment, he still needs these compensations.
But there is a clear change in the way he is beginning to use his body — and, importantly, in the way he approaches his work.
For Frankie, this is not about producing spectacular movements.
It is about **making movement easier, reducing unnecessary tension, and helping him become more comfortable in his own body.**
And perhaps that is also the foundation for changing the behaviour we see on the outside.
**The horse we call "difficult" may sometimes simply be a horse whose body we have not yet learned to understand.**
