20/10/2024
A horse needs to be balanced before it is asked to cover more ground. Slow and steady wins the race. Give lots of breaks, lots of praise and aim for quality over quantity!
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ENGAGE THE SLING BEFORE YOU DRIVE FROM BEHIND
baby race horse getting thoracic sling engagement 😊😊😊🧡🧡🙌🐴
You can see how in the before picture this horse appears collapsed into the ground. His feet are splayed and chest is wide and soft and looks like it is falling into the ground. This is called ‘columnar loading ‘ it means that the horse is loading into the ground like a building, it is the opposite of ‘tensegrity’ which implies a balance of the compression elements giving you suspension and recoil. If your not using your tension elements and just start collapsing into your front end the only way you can really hold yourself up is by tensing through the elbow and thus splaying your front feet.
This baby is 1 year old, never been ridden and already is collapsing into the front end and is losing the ability and desire to engage and lift the thoracic sling.
There is no pectoral activation in the before. He is wide and collapsing in front. For a race horse this is a posture that will make him prone to injury because as he fixates this way it will be more and more difficult for him change and get his front end out of the way.
In the meantime those folks that don’t believe in spinal flexion of the thoracic spine will insist on driving into this braced, blocked, fixated front end that is now being stabilized by the elbows that will externally rotate and brace and a activated brachiocephalicus muscle which will further contract trying to stabilize the neck trying to prevent further compression as the hind end is driven into a front end that is locked down and collapsing into the ground.
I learned in vet school that when there is much opposing discussion about things it usually means none of the answers are correct.
If you cannot lift and engage your thoracic sling so that you have the ability for suspension and recoil as in tensegrity please do not think that driving into it is the solution. If you want your horse to feel like a motor boat you have to have the lift first and then you can drive into it.
Yes you need drive but the road must be open
If you don’t have lift the drive will cause more compression and collapse, creating more dysfunction.
Does that make sense ?
So the answer is your need lift for the drive to have a place to go otherwise you just drive into a brace.
The horse on the right has an engaged thoracic sling. This only took about an hour and this particular little fellow still had a lot of restrictions that will need follow up. But it’s a start - he can now get his front end out of the way allowing for hind end to come under instead of around.
He will be able to push off the ground instead of collapsing into it allowing triceps activation and development.
He will be able to open up his rib cage and breathe deep fully expanding into his diaphragm and creating internal lift to his back. His waist will lengthen, lumbar spine align and psoas relax creating movement to the pelvis and softening the angle so the hips now in alignment can push back at the ground with their full power.
All this in an hour.
All this from re training your nervous system out of dysfunction into function
Lift your sling to lift your back.
Please don’t drive into your horse if he cannot engage his sling and definitely do not back these horses up !!
