Tuesday Fluidity I Day Two

This morning we limped the car over to the ranch having arranged to swap cars at lunch time. So, regardless of the screeching, squealing wheel we were on time for Remuda with Avery. Remuda was very short, just a quick overview of yesterday then straight into class for today's topic The Horses' Posture vs Conformation taken by Kathy.

Posture has the following attributes: learned, developed, body language, good or bad, emotions/attitude, energy and soft tissue positioning.

Conformation has the following attributes: innate, bones, angles, growth, physical structure and difficult to change.

So posture is pliable, whereas conformation is not. This leads into the physical aspects of level 3, but by taking care of the mental and emotional needs (levels 1 and 2) a start to posture correction will have taken place.

It is also important to consider external pressure which could have an effect upon posture, for example, an ill fitting saddle restricting the shoulder blades full rotation or strong hands on the reins. It is also worth considering where the rider's balance point is on the horse - it should be central to the trailing and leading feet.

The first thing to observe in posture is whether you have a good banana or bad banana. A good banana had smooth relaxed curves with equally developed muscles; while a bad banana has atrophied and over developed muscles with angular points. The horse should also have an equal length in front of the highest wither point to the poll and behind to the point of the rump.

Ways to improve posture include:

• correctly fitting saddle, soft hands on reins and riding fluidly
• ground work using hills, jumps, ditches, obstacles, etc
• confidence - mental and emotional fitness, without this nothing else will change

We then went outside to practice flexion in our backs, so that we could promote flexion in our horse's backs. This involved sitting in the tradition style (see Boris' lovely example) and then rolling back onto our balance points (much much more comfortable). Other exercises were walking like a chicken up a hill feeling the way the lower spin moves and using a log to stretch our lower backs. It was important to stop when the physical feeling was good, so that we could imprint muscle memory.

Today's demonstration by Kathy was to observe horses' postures and to make "-" marks for areas of atrophy and "+" marks for areas of over development with a cattle marker. We were then turned loose to do this with our own horses - yes, Roget does look silly with lots of "-" and "+" in yellow all over him! No, I'm not going to publish an embarrassing picture of the lad - I am trying to form a strong partnership!

So lunch time arrived and I go to swap cars and Avis has supplied me with the most enormous pickup truck I have ever seen! Although the size did come as a shock, it actually drives very lightly. The only problem now is that we have no boot for all our luggage when we return to the airport for our return home! So we may need to do another swap before then!

Play with Roget went very well today. We achieved very sensible, relaxed and rhythmical walk, trot and canter - I even thought he might be ridable for once!!!!!! Then the cheeky left brain extrovert came out and we had some "fun and games" of Roget's making! I did manage to regain the leadership though and finished on a good note. He is such a great character and so much fun, but at times I definitely feel my play drive no where near matches his! He's a challenge!