Making a straight horse

Straightness in the horse is vital no matter what the sport.

In dressage, you might think that a slightly crooked horse is only a 'slight problem'.  However, over years and years of repetitive training, a crooked horse will develop unequal muscles.

In a dressage test you will only loose marks, but for a performance horse such as a jumper, or a reining horse coming into a sliding stop, the horse can actually be injured.

What is straight?

One of the easiest ways to judge if your horse is straight is in the mirror, or be videoed, or ride straight towards a friend and assess:

1. Are the horse's ears level.  Is one in front of the other?  Is one higher than the other?

2. Again, in the mirror...are the horse's nostrils 'in between' the horse's knees?  Or are they out over the left knee, or over the right knee, or shifting constantly left and right.

3. Can you see the back legs?   The horse's hocks should be directly behind the horse's knees when you are riding towards the mirror (bearing in mind that some horses are a little wide or narrow behind).

4. Does the tail swish evenly?  In trot the tail should softly flow left and right, however a sign of problems is if the horse's tail is always held to one side.

Quick tips & remedies:

As soon as you discover the cause...you've instantly discovered the remedy!

1. Test it out!  Ride directly toward the mirror and tilt your head off to one side....and see what happens!  

Ride into the mirror, or down a center line, or towards a safe small jump and look to the right or left directly over your shoulder...and see what happens!

Then, finally....look down and the horse nearly always goes crooked as well (riders very rarely look DOWN...they look down and to the right or left as well)

2. Advanced Dressage
   The real crooked things in advanced movements are tempi changes, the advanced rein-back series and piaffe. 

Everything above applies to the advanced rider as much as it does the absolute beginner, if not MORE because your horse is more highly trained and sensitive...and it's an easy fix...get a mirror!

2. Advanced jumping
   The top jumping coaches in the world bring it down to two basics...rhythm and line.  In other words, how many beats per minute, and how straight is the horse

A combination fence is where things start to fall apart with straightness.  All over the world I have encouraged my top level jumpers to get mirrors and jump at 95-99bmp (to music) straight towards a mirror.   It's the world's best exercise to get straight in your jumping action, and keep rhythm at the same time.  The rewards for your horse are remarkable!

Copyright © 2005
[Colleen Kelly. Improve Your Riding ABN 76799531257].

Dr. Liz Owens demonstrates for Colleen Kelly's lecture  at Equitana, Brisbane.

Notice the horse looking to the right and tilting one ear higher in response to the rider's head position.