STRAIGHTNESS
1. You want the horse’s hind feet to track in the steps of the front feet on a straight line or on a curve or circle down to about 20 feet. Smaller than 20 feet the horse’s inside hind foot should step under the horse and toward its front feet

2. A horse is about 2 1/2 feet (30”) wide at the shoulders

3. Most horses are naturally bent more to the left (concave) then through their right side (convex)

IMPORTANCE OF THE HORSE BEING STRAIGHT
1. Horse must be straight to get the three large joints of the hind legs to flex

2. You must make the horse weigh equal over all four legs

3. The horse must track correctly to be straight

4. You need to have an idea of where the horse is crooked in order to fix it

5. If the horse is straight then he will be balanced

THE HORSE NOT BEING STRAIGHT
1. Loping – the outside hind foot must track into the outside front foot; if not, then the horse is crooked

2. Jumping – going slanted over the jump instead of straight down the middle

3. Stopping – must be straight to stop straight; if not straight then the stop will be crooked

4. This will all lead to lameness and soundness issues as one leg will be more ‘loaded’ than the other

5. Not bending the hip and stifle joint and only the hock joint causes problems

6. The horse does not want to be straight because it is too much work

7. Must get the horse’s hind legs under himself to bend the stifle and hip joints

GYMNASTIC CONSIDERATIONS
1. You must be able to access and manipulate both the front end and the back end of the horse to do these exercises

2. If you can loosen the musculature of the horse then you can direct the parts of the horse through exercises

3. The back end of the horse needs to be flexible because it does the turning

4. 1st Position – (referred to as the Trot Position) Moving the inside hind leg between the two front legs and the outside hind leg into the track of the outside front leg – in reality, performing a shoulder-fore. This position is required so the the horse can push off with power going through its shoulders

5. 2nd Position – (referred to as the Canter Position) The right hind leg steps towards the inside front leg and between the two front legs. Again, this position is required so that the horse can push off with power that is going forward

6. The lumbar-sacral joint and the jaw (poll, atlas, & axis) also need to have flexion

OTHER IMPORTANT FACTORS
1. Never bend the horse’s nose beyond the inside front knee joint or else the horse will be overbent and become unbalanced. Depending on the movement it can be bent at a lesser degree

2. You must keep the base of the horse’s neck over the front legs and the head needs to stay between the horse’s shoulders, then you can get the horse straight

3. Reining and cow horses that have a low profile, i.e., the poll is lower than the withers, are mistaken pictures of relaxation when, in fact, the horse is overburdened in the front end which puts stress on all the front end structures. The low profile of the horse can fool the crowds and yourself, but not the horse

4. A better profile for balance and performance is for the horse’s nose to be lined up with the point of the shoulders and the angle of the head (with the nose slightly in front of the vertical) to be the same angle of the shoulders Also,
don’t let the antagonist muscles (opposite the bend of the horse) get too raggy. Once you start bending the horse’s head around to your knee and can’t stop the action – then you have got it wrong

5. There are seven cervical vertebrae in the horse’s neck. You want to stabilize the last five so you can then flex the first two cervical vertebrae (Atlas and the Axis), i.e., lifting the base of the neck

6. The worse neck position is when the horse ‘breaks’ at the third cervical vertebrae. Once this happens it is almost impossible to fix

7. Horses that yield too much and too quickly is not what you want because then you will have no control and/or influence over the neck

GETTING THE HORSE’S MIND RIGHT (IN THE MOOD)
1. The horse must be willing to be trained

2. You must have or develop a overall system that is logical to the horse and then have methods that are also logical to the horse

3. Tom Dorrance said that “If a horse perceives himself to be in pressure and he is the cause of it, he won’t do it. He must find relief himself .”

4. If the human could see it from the horse’s perspective, then we wouldn’t do it

5. Ego and Greed are human attributes, not the horse’s. Horses just want safety and comfort

**6. We must always ask ourselves when things are not working out:
What part of our presentation is the horse not understanding AND why?

**7. It goes back to our INTENT, ATTITUDE,APPROACH, and PRESENTATION

IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS
1. If you can straighten the horse, he will get into a better mood and will feel better about the whole aspect of training

2. Riding the horse from front to back is exactly the opposite of how you want the horse to perform – YOU MUST SCHOOL FROM THE BACK END TO THE FRONT END

3. Get the horse to step under himself by going forward with the hind legs reaching toward the front end

4. You want the horse to push more with its hindquarters and not pull with its front end. This is the key to fixing the horse