04/21/2025
Mary Wanless clinic March 25-27 2025
Mary Wanless Rider Biomechanics
Ride With Your Mind
Notes
Day one – Tuesday March 25th
Alicia – 3 yrs riding, 6 y/o Friesian cross (pinto)
Krista – Eventer with 11 y/o chestnut TB
To slow the speed of the horse’s legs, slow your seat bones. Stay short, keep your ribs down to your hips
Collarbone forward, center of chest down, bear down & still your seat bones, thighs snug
Weight out of foot – into thigh
Right knee up, right thigh on. Knees level – imagine a bar from knee to knee. Chest & knee closer together.
Shape of Femur, knee, Lower leg should make an arrowhead – 90 degree angle.
March the forces rising (trot) More thrust & more bear down
Imagine water through two hoses from the hind legs to add more impulsion
Bear down – bring your belly button towards your spine to make a wall, and then push your guts against the wall
Pause in the saddle when you sit (trot) to slow the horse’s legs – Velcro on a moment longer
“It takes a little bit of obsessional to get this riding stuff right.”
“I teach average riders to check in. Elite riders never check out.”
Heidi – 5 yo bay WB
Katie – 7 yo QH western saddle
-when horse is diving in, Keep outside thigh on & seatbone in place - > keep your outside aids on and think like you have suction cups all along your thigh to help bring them over, not neglecting inside aids.
“Thighs on” does not mean gripping. Weight bearing vs. gripping
Check the length of sternum to p***c bone when going into the rise of rising trot. It should stay the same. Seat bones stay close to spine
My chest over his chest (forward rise instead of upwards rise)
Aim your bear down at the withers (forward thrust, not up)
To feel your thigh snug against saddle, place fist on the side of the twist of saddle, and then push inwards, together with the opposite thigh at the same time. Then remove your fist and keep this feeling of engagement of your thigh against the saddle
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Julie – 4 yo wiggly wb
Tobey 8 yo chestnut KWPN
Explanation of the 3 parts of the upper thigh & their muscles & attachments.
Description of using p***c bone like the bridge of a violin (as a lever) to increase lifting horse base of neck and filling crest out.
Think – front of front legs go out, bottom chest plate goes away (forward and up), top of topline comes toward me = tilting a dolley back (the dolley you might use when moving heavy boxes stacked on top of each other on the dolley)
Land lightly, don’t lean back
Mentioning sling shot without explanation (bring pelvis back in sling shot)
Knee back, slingshot back instead of lean back
Front legs out and slow (use bear down)
Incline slightly forward in rising trot and come back into saddle lightly.
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Seminar lunch break
Physics & Functional Anatomy – over – Discipline, tradition & location/culture/trend etc.
The homunculus map - depicting how different regions of the motor cortex control movement in different parts of our body
When riding – sstart the waterwheel forward over the withers
Use the imagery of a French press when you want to push the coffee grounds down – push your internal coffee plunger down into pelvis
Discussion about how maybe ‘length, width, height/depth’ meant ‘deep in saddle’ instead of todays traditional meaning of getting heavy in your seat bones/butt. Maybe it meant fill up the space in a 3d way more
Another mention of suction cupping to draw the horse out
Toes in stirrup – think of the inner edge of the blade of a sled, then think of the pelvic triangle. You can make the right side wider (sit more and gain more connection) by thinking inner edge of the sled for the toe – prevents ankle from collapsing & places thigh more on the saddle
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Suzanne – TB mare
Tobey – Friesian
No notes
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Rylee – 7 yo TB mare (calling to everyone in the barn!)
Susanne – 7 yo Oldenburg 1st level dressage + jumper
Anne – 11 yo WB (scared of audience)
Taylor – 11 yo TB (difficult conformation)
Close your armpits at the back (alternative for saying ‘shoulders back’)
Heel back and more up
Don’t get butt heavy to slow your horse down
Land on the front of your pelvic triangle in rising trot. Reach your tailbone back (back too rounded)
French press coffee plunger metaphor – When you use the plunger, the coffee grounds do not get heavier but the mass is lower in the glass jar. In breath, plunger down out breath and keep it.
Torso & Rubix cube – Keep your torso in alignment like a rubix cube, solid and stacked on top of each other
Check right though on and knee on, foot back
My chest over his chest
Left thigh on and turn shoulders right more
Think of narrowing your thighs, engaging them more, to increase the “stuffing”
“Hung in a harness” – Bum light, feet light
Widen your hands to pick up the slack for a horse that changes their head and neck position a lot in order to achieve an always following contact
end of notes
pfa
