Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

I think of crookedness/straightness as a spectrum. 

Our horses all fall somewhere on this spectrum (and likely start at the straighter end as babies, and end up on the crookeder end if not seriously  tended to as training continues), and so do we.  Add crooked tack (uneven panels on a saddle) or crooked farrier work as a foundation, or an old injury, and the whole thing ends up as a bit of a crooked/straight 3D puzzle.

Most of us have seen the extremes of this -- riders with upper bodies angled off to the side to an alarming degree or horses that dog-trot down the trail with the hind end FAR off to the side.

Another point.

Your body lies to you.  Your horse's body lies to him.  As several mentioned, you really need an outside educated eye to point out where you are crooked, or contributing to/enabling your horse's on-going crookedness.  If you can find a dressage instructor who seems enthused when you tell them that you'd like to use dressage to help you with your endurance goals, that's probably a good start.  If you have multiple horses who all seem to prefer the same diagonal and/or lead, chances are that you might be part of the problem.

When that instructor or friend places you in a straight position, I can guarantee you will FEEL crooked.  You will swear you are falling off the side of your horse.  You're in excellent company.  We're all crooked.  The difference is that some people go along willingly crooked (i.e. the blissfully ignorant) and some people battle their crookedness all of the time.  My mantra down the trail is frequently RIGHT HIP FORWARD (my evil nemesis after a pelvic rim fracture).

As someone from "good peasant stock" I feel I owe my horses to ride them as straight and balanced as I can, and to condition/train them to be as evenly balanced as possible themselves.  In other words, my fat tuchus needs to be in the middle of the saddle, with my horses taught to use both hind legs evenly under their body to propel our collective tuchuses forward.

Nobody does cartwheels over the notion of 20m circles (unless they have a serious case of masochism), but as an ol' dressage geek from way back, I can tell you that bending lines under the weight of a rider, correctly ridden, is one of the quickest trips to getting there.

Here's why:

As everyone has mentioned, the trot is a diagonal gait, and the object of posting is to ease the burden of the hind leg that is stepping under the body (i.e. when you are rising on the horse's left front diagonal, you are easing the burden of the right hind that is moving under the horse's body as you lift your tuchus out of the saddle).

It takes a lot of skill to get a horse stepping evenly "through" on a straight line, or to teach a horse to do so, particularly if they are already happily crooked.  Changing diagonals is a huge start, but it really needs to be combined with aids to actually get the horse to step evenly with each hind leg (and if one hind leg is "weak", you'll just feel the struggle --remember, his body is lying to him too, he thinks the status quo is just fine thankyouverymuch-- he'll try to bounce you back to the other diagonal or you'll just find there isn't enough "push" to get you out of the saddle on that diagonal or the horse will weight a shoulder to avoid using the hind leg or even throw it's head/neck to one side to compensate).

A circle, by virtue of the fact that it causes the inside of the horse to shorten, and the outside of the horse to lengthen, forces the horse to change the dynamics of how he utilizes his body.  With all the possible types of crooked soup we can create with our horses, it would be impossible to give a "recipe" for what to fix on that circle, but again, a good set of eyes on the ground is critical.

Cantering requires symmetry too, of course.  Since the horse pushes off into the canter with one of his hind legs (the opposite one from it's front leg "lead"), horses frequently prefer to be on the same trot diagonal as they do their canter lead.  (For example, lots of horses like their riders to be on their left trot diagonal --rider rising as the left front leg comes forward-- and also like to canter on their left lead;  both are symptomatic of a horse with a stronger RIGHT hind.)   In most cases, it's not endless cantering on the right lead that will strengthen the LEFT hind, but rather hundreds and hundreds of transitions onto the right lead canter, as it is the PUSHING off that does the strengthening.  (Add circles, as above, and you speed up the horse's ability to strengthen.)

Obviously, one could go on and on (and on, as I am) on the biomechanics involved.  The Old Dead Guys (i.e. what we dressage queens call the old classical dressage masters) have actually written entire BOOKS on these subjects.  

One last point.   Like our horses, we all feel straight and boingy and such at Mile 3.  It's the damage we're doing to one another at Mile 44, or even Mile 82, when we're both tired, stress, more crooked than ever, that is worth trying to prevent.  We've all heard of the straw that broke the camel's back ... 

I'll be curious as to what Bruce Weary (or even Dr. Q) has to say on this one, as like some others have mentioned, I spend a lot of time off the horse trying to keep myself straight thru Yoga and such.  Anyone who has had rolfing work done on their body, or myofascial release, or likely chiropractic as well, likely knows just how their crookedness contributes to the equation.

Just my two cents. Actually, from the length of it, maybe 23 cents or so.

--Patti Stedman (might be riding straight at Mile 2, but don't look too close at Mile 48.5 please -- I'm just happy to have the steel side down, the fleshy side up at that point)