down and forward
Aiguisons nos yeux encore !
Penchons-nous aujourd’hui sur la question de l’extension d’encolure.
Illustration by Eitan
translated from French
Let’s look at the issue of neckline extension today.
“Let’s sharpen our eyes again!
Let’s look at the issue of neckline extension today.
First of all, what is the purpose of asking our horse to extend his nose down and forward?
Well the answer is both simple and complex and it would take an anatomical board with a book to explain exactly what’s going on at the muscle level etc… But we’ll simplify!
In fact we seek that the horse forms a ′′ bridge ′′ with his body, so that he can carry us on his back, without it being detrimental!
To do this, you will have to soften the horse’s back first, then gradually bring him up his wither to create this famous carrier key.
Depending on whether the horse is more or less flexible, exercise will be easier for him and that’s exactly what will determine the height of his end of his nose.
Let’s imagine a particularly stiff horse, seeing even with a reverse muscle, simply having to stretch horizontally is already difficult for him.
In these cases, you often observe a rider who focuses only on the front end, asking the horse to have a nose that shaves the ground, but who completely forgets the backend. Thus, for a horse who, by its stiffness, can physically not put his nose to the ground without completely disengaging his hind legs, exercise is useless, even counterproductive! For in this position, without hardship, the horse crashes on his front hand, does not stretch properly, and does not work his flexibility.
Therefore, the height of the front end must be adapted to the horse’s ability to engage.
To determine how high we will start looking to work, you need to put the horse in a sustained pace and then gradually ask for the descent of the end of the nose. As soon as the horse disengages or rises up the head at once to avoid falling forward, it’s because you’ve reached the limit of his flexibility. You know then that’s what it’s going to take to start working to gradually get your horse’s nose down as the sessions go, without ever losing the engagement of the hind legs.
On the horse that became supple or a horse that retains the commitment of its hind legs and its pace while extending its front end, we can go towards an even bigger extension this time with the end of the nose to the ground.
But watch out! It is very very rare to encounter this case! The supple horses are very trapping and this exercise is to work with a lot of parsimony on a naturally very supple horse, it will take more time to tone the whole body than to soften it.
So depending on the horse, the degree of stretch varies. And this is the reason why we are talking about extension, stretching etc…”.
Cheval ta race
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