My paint horse is built slightly downhill and is heavy on her front end. How do I get her to use her back end?
I am using her for hunter/jumper. She comes off the jumps very heavy on her front. She also is having trouble with lead changes. What exercises can I do to use her back end more? Thanks
take her into a field with lots of gradual hills
trot her down the hill, stop her, and ask her to back the whole way up the hill. it will build muscles in her rear end and teach her balance.
make sure when you are backing her she is keeping her neck round. if her head is in the air or flat on the ground this exercise is worthless because she won’t be using her rear and back properly.
also try and half halt before and after the jumps (and around turns too) to help keep her light and balanced.
another thing to do is ride her up and over a small (18 inch) X let her trot/canter for about 5 strides afterward then stop and back her until her hocks touch the jump. (same thing goes for her head carriage)
if this doesn’t work take a few lessons with a dressage teacher and they will help you lighten up your horse.
back her up ALOT. LIke whole arena width.
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my step sis horse
take her into a field with lots of gradual hills
trot her down the hill, stop her, and ask her to back the whole way up the hill. it will build muscles in her rear end and teach her balance.
make sure when you are backing her she is keeping her neck round. if her head is in the air or flat on the ground this exercise is worthless because she won’t be using her rear and back properly.
also try and half halt before and after the jumps (and around turns too) to help keep her light and balanced.
another thing to do is ride her up and over a small (18 inch) X let her trot/canter for about 5 strides afterward then stop and back her until her hocks touch the jump. (same thing goes for her head carriage)
if this doesn’t work take a few lessons with a dressage teacher and they will help you lighten up your horse.
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Lounging, and more lounging.
Get a set of side reins, or a curcincle and 2 lounge lines and let her figure it out herself. I have a 17 hh TB who is sooo heavy on his front end, but I lounged him a lot and now he’s definitely light and happy. Just make sure that whenever you ride, you sit back and keep you shoulders off of hers, cause that will make it harder. I know over jumps you have to 2 point but try to sit after fences so she doesn’t have to support your body through turns and in between fences.
Best of luck.
Oh and make sure that when you do side reins or double lining (using 2 lounge lines) you don’t start her off too tight, let her stretch long and low and get supple and stretched out before you get her collected.
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My life!
I would put a rail 9 feet out on both sides of the jump(start with something small) anyway that will make the horse jump off the back end and land off the front end (if you know what I mean) also i would put a rail at the end of your line and make her switch over the rail at the end, she will get the hang of it and since horses are creatures of habit it wont take long! I would lay off lounging its bad on the joints! hill work is good!
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I can just think of one thing to do when you ride make sure that you are sitting back and when your cantering/trotting stay back and get her balanced with her bent to the inside slightly, this will help her to use her back end more because you aren’t letting her lean on her front she will have to use her back end.
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Try some dressage training. It will help teach your horse to push more from behind and lighten up on the forehand, it will also help with your lead changes as your horse needs to get her hind legs up underneath her body to be able to push into the other lead. The more you practice some basic dressage techniques the more she will develop the habits as well as the muscles to be able to maintain herself over the jumps as well as the flat. Dressage training won’t have any negative impact on your hunter/jumper training, it can only help!
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20yrs experience
You have gotten some good advice, and it may help somewhat. Strengthening your horse’s backend by working up and down hills, and by backing for longer distances can help improve muscle tone and strength.
But no one has mentioned one sad fact.
Your horse’s conformation is not going to change with these excercises. You can improve things, but you cannot change this fact. A downhill horse will have a disadvantage in most cases over a more uphill build. You can improve her strength, you can teach her to do the best she can with what she has, but you cannot change this fact. I believe our goal as horse owners is to find things that are horses are physically and mentally capable of, and then giving them those things as jobs. That is a way to make a happy and healthy horse. So a horse that is naturally slow moving, easy going and lazy is not the right horse to become a games horse. And the higher strung, fast loping horse is not going to enjoy trying to become a Western pleasure horse. This may be true for your horse. Its totally fine and even good within reason to improve and cross train a horse. But it is will very difficult and on-going stressful for your horse to be expected to move in a frame that she is not physically capable of doing. I would consider what this mare’s strenghts are, and then try to bring her to her fullest in that area, and keep the tougher things such as flying lead changes and such as a smaller part of her life.
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