11/21/2025
Folks, it's completely true that advanced horsemanship and advanced maneuvers are mostly about the hind end moving correctly, with enough impulsion, and when and how you ask. This in no way means that the shoulder isn't important too.
This weekend was a 4 H horse camp that my son attended and I helped as an adult volunteer. The disengaging of the hindquarters is an epidemic. While this is a decent exercise for very young/green horses, it tends to get way over talked about and way over done.
If you are looking to stay safe on the ground and be able to do decent groundwork with your horse, it's WAY important that you can move the shoulder over. The only time you're going to get run over by a hip is if you have the horse tied and it can't get away. Darn near all ground wrecks involve you being pushed down and run over by the shoulder. Get the shoulder moving away from you as your main safety feature. Let's say that you have a horse that is continuously charging and pushing you with the shoulder. Disengaging them is like constantly re-pointing the muzzle of a gun at yourself. It makes it more dangerous, not less. Get the muzzle pushed away. That's the shoulder. Move the shoulder away. Please. If you're teaching a kid, teach them to move the shoulder away first. Please.
Disengaging the hindquarters is a small part of the puzzle on the way to engaging the hindquarters. Not all movement of the hindquarters is or should be disengagement. You don't actually want to ride a horse that is constantly disengaging the hindquarters. You can easily overdo disengaging and this is one of the most common problems we face today. Habituating this type of movement in your horse is a big mistake and it will take a lot of time to fix down the road. That time will be wasted and someone worked very hard to cause the problem, so, seriously, a few days of this when starting to ride or halter breaking is plenty 97% of the time. If you're doing this for months on end, you're making a big mistake. STOP.
This is also not a great thing for your horse physically. Lots of groin, HQ, and spine things out there result from the horse being disengaged 80,000 times. Chill out. Teach the kindergarteners their ABCs, but you're not going over the ABCs everyday in 7th grade, are you? Stop neglecting the shoulder. It's the actual thing that's going to get you hurt.
While I am up on this soapbox, keep in mind that "Whoa" doesn't mean stop forward motion, get your butt up out of the ground, shift all your weight to your front end, and turn 90 degrees. If you are disengaging their hindquarters, at the very least, please don't think you are teaching them to stop. You aren't. You're stopping them and then starting them to doing a few more things. That's not what "Whoa" means. If you picture a horse silhouette fully bucking, they are parking the front end and the hindquarters are quite free. Freeing up the hindquarters is NOT going to stop a horse from bucking. Whew! I feel better now!
