Finishing Touch Equine Services

12/01/2024

Feel ✅️ Check ✅️ Double Check ✅️

09/28/2024

👇👇👇👇👇

Why do biomechanics matter?

No one uttered this term to me, in all my years of riding and lesson-taking, until I was well into my 20's. I heard lots of other words: contact, responsiveness, connection, rhythm, impulsion, suppleness. All of them felt like these ethereal concepts that had multiple meanings depending on who you talked to. They also had varying degrees of importance or ranking in terms of what you need first before the horse can offer the next thing, depending on who you talked to. I still see this all the time, and hear about how frustrating it is from other horsepeople trying to do the best they can.

Biomechanics are the physical relationships and structural laws that govern how living things move. Biomechanics are the HOW in all of those aforementioned ethereal terms. They are vital in understanding how to correctly develop a horse for riding. This is the first reason why biomechanics matter.

The second reason is because horses weren't designed to be ridden. I cannot overstate how important this is to understand if you want to ride horses and ride them well: horses were NEVER designed to be sat on. The horse is born with a specific set of biomechanical tools available to him, and they serve him very well...when they are needed.

The thing is, those tools were designed for maximum efficiency if the horse's life is in danger: used for brief moments, blips in between long stretches of calm. Those exact tools can cause injury, unsoundness, and degeneration if used every day, day in and day out, for years.
. . . . . . . .

I want you to look at these two photos.

The top horse is using what nature gave him (and what work with humans helped him turn into long-standing patterns in movement). The bottom horse has been given new tools and taught how to use them to move in ways that preserve soundness, not encourage degeneration.

The top horse is moving in a way that directly ties into the same sympathetic nervous system responses that kick in when a horse is in danger. The bottom horse is demonstrating all of the power potential the nervous system makes available when the horse is in danger, but accessing it through relaxation and completely different biomechanics.

The top horse is using the ground to support his weight in movement, putting a lot of pressure on his joints. The bottom horse is doing a lot of that supporting himself by virtue of his posture, putting significantly less strain on his joints.

You may have already figured out this is the same horse. These photos were taken approximately two years apart.

I guess what I'm getting at is this: the way to develop the bottom horse isn't to simply take the top horse and add contact, impulsion, responsiveness, ride circle after circle, do pole and hill work, etc. Whatever you apply to the ridden horse will only reinforce what is already in him.

You must teach him, literally from the ground up, a new way of moving, a different biomechanical perspective. Some horses will come by this easier than others, but not a one is born knowing how to put all of these things together on their own when the human asks it. Not a one.

We have to show them how.

PC: Mandy Helwege. Thank you for permitting me to share your lovely boy.

03/21/2023

04/24/2021

Really neat slow motion clip of wither & shoulder movement under saddle 👀

12/21/2020

Balance ☯️

06/25/2020

💯💯💯

03/12/2020

👇👇👇

https://dressagetoday.com/theory/importance-riding-stretching-position-uta-graf

Uta Gräf of Germany explains that this exercise is an important part of training not just for young horses or dressage horses, but for all horses.

09/09/2019

Why not use poles?

As a problem horse specialist, horses are often thrown my way having been cleared as physically fit by umpteen professionals. In many cases I am last chance saloon- by the time they get to me they’re usually glow in the dark from all the fruitless X rays they’ve had done. Therefore it always surprises people when I watch their horse move and while leaning nonchalantly against a fence, attention half on the horse and half on figuring out whatever fiddly coffee flask bequeathed to me this week, I matter of factly observe that “Last time I saw a back end move that badly it was 3am on a dance floor in Magaluf; bring him in, I’ve seen enough.”
The client usually then looks at me with the apprehension of a contraband mule approaching a customs officer in Tehran. I’ll then start dropping out poles and be the first person to tell them to WALK their horse over them. I’ll raise them and still, I insist on a good active walk. I’m of the opinion that most riders do not use the walk enough anyway, but that’s a blog for another time. Running a horse over 20 poles and calling it a work out may look fancy but it does not give your horse time to think.

Many horses that have experienced either emotional or physical discomfort become disconnected from their feet. By this I mean they don’t think about where they’re placing their feet or how best to move in a comfortable manner. They’ll think about the arena gate, they’ll think their friends neighing outside, they’ll think about collapsing to the inside in anticipation of yet another 20 meter circle and a more emotionally balanced horse will think about the person they’re working with- but they do not think about raising their body up and out of the way so that the knees and hocks can flex in a way that gets the hamstrings and scapula stretching, the pelvis and sacroiliac area supple and landing heel first in a straight line. “I’ve done pole work before” is the usual go to response, immediately followed by “he’ll knock them over in walk”. In reality they’ve “done” pole work in the same way I’ve “done” the Eiffel Tower, Giza Pyramids and the Golden Gate- I came, I saw, I checked in on Facebook and bought a hideously overpriced hotdog. I ‘did’ these places, but I did not delve into them any further than what the tourist information boards told me. People who “did” poles did the same- they’ve lunged their horses over poles that are so perfectly spaced they’re impossible to get wrong, in trot because “with more energy he’ll find it easier to get over them” and in a lunging contraption that puts the horse into the ideal outline and in doing so disguises true perspective of how the horse actually moves. What hasn’t been explored is why he needs google maps, a bungee and a run up just to step over cavaletti the height of a coke can.
This is why I am not a fan of set pole exercises. I have my old favourites such as the box, the clock and the arrow, but initially I simply watch a horse walk over a single pole to determine which part of the body is not pulling its weight. Once identified, I’ll alter the single pole in a way that will isolate the ‘lazy’ part so that the horse is caused to activate that body part, then I will set up according to what that particular horse needs; weakness, muscle fatigue, pain and anticipation of pain all require entirely different courses of action.

Now before I get the “What you’re saying is you hate pole exercises! Some of my best friends are pole exercises!” brigade swinging off my jugular- take stock of which word you chose to emphasise in the title. if your horse is not physically or emotionally compromised in any way then feel free to utilise the vast range of pole exercises google has to offer- indeed they make flat work more interesting and are an essential tool for jump training. However, if you have a horse that is for all intents and purposes sound but not quite right, slowing things down and seeing where difficulties appear can improve matters greatly or even just give you a starting point.

Well done for reading that dissertation of a blog, hopefully as summer closes and things start to slow down this will be my last big blogging break and you can look forward to more long winded ponderings over autumn.

04/10/2019

🙏🏇💯

https://dressagetoday.com/theory/importance-riding-stretching-position-uta-graf

Uta Gräf of Germany explains that this exercise is an important part of training not just for young horses or dressage horses, but for all horses.

03/15/2019

They are not machines...treat them right 👐

There is no quick fix in our sport. Not a sharper bit, not a bigger spur, not a quick injection to numb the pain, no drugs, no doping. We are dealing with a living creature. With a heart, a soul and a body we are responsible to take care of the best way possible for the long run. Be a horseman first, then an equestrian athlete.

02/15/2019

Food for thought...

The anatomy of a horse leg vs. a human foot. This is the best example I have seen explaining just how closely their bones resemble ours and which ones correspond. Fascinating, right?!