Everything Horses and Livestock® Magazine February 2018 Vol 3 Issue 1

Everything Horses and Livestock Magazine ®

toes are down, you’re probably riding with the front of your pelvis, squeezing with your knees and don’t have good weight in the stirrups. If you get a little forward and squeeze with your thighs, it makes a horse uptight. Then, when you’re trying to stop him, you’re giving him two cues. You’re forward; your feet are a little behind you and you’re gripping with your thighs. You’ve locked the horse’s shoulders, but you’re squeezing, and then he wants to move away from that. Your body position and tension in your legs is causing the horse to be nervous, and then you get into a tug-of-war with your hands. Elbow position also affects the horse; the elbow position will determine what your wrists are doing. If your elbows are close to your body, you’re going to be able to keep your horse collected better. With your elbows in, it helps keep your rib cage and your horse’s rib cage in the correct position. When maneuvering through a mounted shooting pattern, that rib position, along with shoulder position, affects how a horse turns. For instance, if a mounted shooter is turning left around a barrel, there’s a tendency for the rider to drop his or her left shoulder, causing the horse to do the same. That pushes the horse’s rib cage slightly to the left, and his head slightly to the outside, or right side. This is not conducive to a smooth, perfectly executed turn. A lot of times the horse will have to take an extra stride to get in the correct position.

why slow practice is important. At any speed, the rider’s body is going to dictate how the horse’s body is shaped. Even at a walk, a horse can’t go around and around in a perfect circle if he drops his shoulder or steps out with his hip. You have to do everything slowly, keep your horse relaxed, keep your body position correct, and then you can help your horse get his body in the right place. Good balance and good posture will create happy riders and happy horses! And really isn’t that our ultimate goal as horse people – to enjoy our time with our equine partner? 

When you do things repetitiously, if you do them wrong you’re building the wrong kind of muscle memory. If you teach your horse proper muscle memory by using the proper body position, even when you add speed that [muscle memory] will help your horse make fewer mistakes. That’s why body positioning is so important, whether it’s a speed event or not. Perfect practice” at slow speeds will develop proper muscle memory. A rider cannot think of every muscle movement at a high rate of speed and get it right, that’s

Til We Meet Again! ~ Shannon Rowl Visit our Website www.kansascmsa.com

Everything Horses and Livestock® | February 2018 | EHALmagazine.com 54