Suppling the Horse

Last time we looked at the 3 S's that create our optimal training routine: Schooling, Suppling, and Strength training.

Throughout the course we did a deep dive into how the horse’s body is put together (well, we did a shallow dive, because there was several months worth of material we could have covered). Anyhow, I wanted to share how the body works to stress how important what we are going to discuss today. Of all the S's this is by far the most important; so lets jump in!

Why Stretch?

Suppling and stretching is an essential foundation for our healthy, horsey athletes.

Stretching in particular releases tension, encourages swing in the body, flushes waste out of muscles (looking at you, lactic acid), and allows for better balance and alignment; which helps to slowly correct those asymmetries we have previously noted.
Taking the time to stretch and supple our horses allows the skeletal muscle chains to relax and work in harmony, and gives our horses the time to mentally relax, breathe, and lose any tension that may have occurred during the week, or during your ride.

Horses, like people tend to lose it if they don't use it. If we are riding our athletes in an overly compressed frame day-in and day-out, they are not working efficiently through the body, and might even lose the ability to truly lengthen and stretch over their back and topline. These overly compressed horses are limiting the muscles' natural range of motion.

Proper Stretching

We all have an image in our head of a horse stretching...the horse drops its nose practically into the dirt and plods or plows around like a bloodhound. The notion that the further down the neck goes the better the stretch, is one I wish I could lovingly beat out of your heads (lovingly, of course).

Here are my main objectives in the stretch:

Does my horse’s posture change? Do they fall onto the forehand? Run when the reins are released? Trip and stumble?

It’s important to remind ourselves that the neck acts like a balancing rod for the entire body- send it too far down and your horse WILL fall on the forehand. The horse should be balanced enough that they don't surge when the neck is sent out- don't mistake this for being naughty! Generally an unbalanced horse will move faster and faster in attempt to regain balance. My suggestion with a running horse is to ensure my posting has not changed rhythm and to establish contact and try again.

Does the horse continue to seek the contact?

This is great insight into how you are riding your horse.
Riding a horse so they are pushing INTO the contact and not bracing and pulling away from the contact, is what truly makes them through. If you are pulling a horse’s neck back to make him “on the bit” both the back and the hind legs will disengage- causing the horse to hollow, and stress his skeletal muscle chains. This is commonly referred to ‘riding front to back’.

Meanwhile, even within a short contact- if the horse is stretching into your short reins and seeking the contact, his hind-legs should be freely stepping under and the back will be engaged- also known as 'riding back to front'.

To an uneducated eye, a horse ridden ‘front to back’ and a horse ridden ‘back to front’ might have a similar outline, and may even look the same! However, the musculature isn’t designed to be pulled into compression in the ‘front to back’ way, meaning the body does not work harmoniously with muscles being pulled into position- which will cause stiffness, soreness, and discomfort as we learned from our study into skeletal muscles and how they work.

If you ask your horse to stretch, and they are hiding behind your hand, or the contact, this likely a telling way that you are not riding them correctly! Giving contact and having the horse go nowhere, generally means their frame has been pulled together.

When the horse seeks the contact when you soften your hand, this is generally a pat on the back that you have successfully ridden your horse from back to front, and they are properly using their body.

Does the throat latch remain open?

This concept goes hand in hand with the horse seeking the contact, however, even horses who are being ridden from back to front (or trying to be ridden in that way) can tend to tuck behind the vertical as the neck becomes long. Personally, I take this as a sign that I am trying to send the neck down too far, and instead need to focus on sending the neck out. The horse should never be behind the vertical while stretching (think nose coming towards chest), and this might be a work in progress as your horse progresses through proper training.

Does the back swing?

I don’t exclusively want the neck to lengthen, I want the entire body to lengthen and remain relaxed, or to relax if it has become tight and tense from work. A swinging body, is a through, relaxed body.

Here’s a (blurry..sorry) photo of a horse stretching- you can see the withers remain lifted and the horse is in balance- not falling onto the forehand. The neck is stretching forward, slightly downward, and the nose is seeking the contact. The entire body is lengthening in frame.
My critique would be the horse could slow the tempo down, as I am riding her slightly over tempo, and the left flexion in the poll could be improved, as the nose is twisting to the right slightly.

Exercise:
Lengthening and Shortening the Neck

I will begin at the walk- walking freely on a loose rein. As I begin to slowly shorten the contact I pay close attention to see if there is a point of resistance where my horse wants to brace, evade the contact by throwing his neck in the air, or duck behind the contact. I must feel even contact in my hand at all times during this exercise. Once I hit that point of resistance, I send the neck back down to my starting stretching point, and try again.

I want the neck and body to become elastic, just like my rein length. I should be able to cast the neck out and reel it in with zero hesitation or resistance, and it is common to need to repeat this exercise several times before that is possible.

Once I have conquered lengthening and shortening the neck without resistance at the walk, while maintaining a relaxed swinging body and a clear 4-beat rhythm, onto the trot!

I establish an appropriate tempo, and once again I cast out the neck and shorten it, stopping where my horse stiffens or braces, and sending it back down to start again. The goal is to have a neck that can lengthen and shorten without affecting the balance, swing, or tempo of the trot.

If I have a horse with good balance, I can also try this exercise at canter, however we need to be incredibly cautious that the horse does not fall onto the forehand, at the risk of falling down!

Other Ways to Supple:

Stretching isn’t the only way to supple a horse under saddle!

Glancing back to your asymmetry notes and thinking of your horse’s stiff side, we have some exercises to further supple your horse so he can loosen the body and move freely.

Let’s say I’m tracking left, which is my horse’s hollow side. The neck is carried too far to the inside, the shoulders are falling out, and the haunches are trailing in. He isn’t through, he’s stiff on the right rein, empty on the left, and that right hind leg is doing a majority of the heavy lifting while the left hind leg is refusing to step under the body to carry weight. All in all, this is pretty normal posture for a hollow horse.

First things first, I need to stretch out that right side, which is where this stiffness to the right and hollowness to the left is stemming from. Those two things go hand in hand.

Exercise:
Spiral In and Spiral Out

Starting on a 20m circle (even larger if you have the space) tracking to your horse’s stiff side, I’m going to simply ride a circle. As mentioned above, I am tracking right, which is the stiff side.

I want my horse to be as soft on my inside rein as possible, with good right bend and right flexion- this might be a challenge as we are going the hard way. Now, with my outside rein, I am steering in to 19m, 18m, 17m, etc.

It is going to be tempting to relax your inside leg so the horse can fall in on the circle; but the key here is to take your time. I like to ride approximately a full circle before I move in toward my smaller circle size. Your horse should remain upright/not leaning, with enough inside bend to match the size of the circle he is currently on. If you feel him stiffen, or fall in on the circle, you may have to take one step out (ex, I slowly spiral in to 16m and my horse begins to drop his inside shoulder and fall into my inside leg. If I cannot correct this on my 16m circle, I may yield out to 17m to correct his posture, before attempting to spiral back into the 16m circle again).
The goal is to slowly spiral this circle into a proper volte (8m) without falling in with the shoulders/haunches, without leaning into the circle (I like to picture a motorcycle leaning around a turn), and without losing the tempo of the trot! This may be difficult at fist, so for the really stiff horse, a small 10-12m circle will suffice.

Now for the real magic! Once you have come to your smaller circle, or volte, we get to slowly spiral out; this is where the suppling comes into play. Moving slowly from 8m to 9m, 10m, 11m, and onward I am driving the horse off of my inside leg into my outside rein- yielding out. I want my horse to be patient and not run through my outside rein aid, and I want that inside hind leg (right hind in this scenario) to cross under his body. So I am imagining the shoulders are slightly leading as I slowly spiral in, and the haunches are slightly leading as I slowly spiral out- engaging that right hind and creating an effective right bend.

Find your way back to the larger circle, and repeat. Again, I want to stress, this isn’t a race. We are taking our time spiraling in and spiraling out. Spiraling in is the hard part, spiraling out is where the magic happens. Repeat this several times, and then change direction.

Exercise:
Long Leg Yield Lines

We have completed a variation of leg yield during the spiraling out phase of the previous exercise. Still, I will frequently leg yield my horse in order to supple his stiff side; so the horse with the stiffness tracking right, I will leg-yield away from my right leg in order to reinforce this bend.

Begin the leg yield in the walk- long lines across the diagonal. This is one of my favorite tools to supple a horse, as you can reinforce honesty in the bend and outside rein.

Things to be mindful of:

Falling, or running away from the inside leg and through the outside rein.

In the leg yield the horse has to move forward and sideways- this isn’t a side pass, he shouldn’t lose any forward momentum or forward direction of travel as soon as the lateral work is introduced.

Play with the bend.

Sometimes, for fun, I will ask for too much bend- therefore I will let the shoulders lead a little too much toward the wall (or wherever I am steering). Sometimes I will keep him too straight, and won’t let the shoulders lead at all as I move him off my leg. The key is to make sure he is responsive to my inside leg, and polite off of my outside rein. If he starts to run through my outside rein, I will straighten and eliminate all sideways movement.

Where is the head, shoulders, knees (and toes)

In a proper leg yield, the knees of the horse need to be pointing forward, the shoulders should lead slightly in the direction of travel, and the head/neck should be in the center of the chest, with inside flexion.
Let’s say I’m trotting through the short side of the arena by C, and upon completing my corner onto the long side, I change bend to leg yield towards X on the center line. I change bend, yield the horse off of my outside leg, and allow the shoulders to lead in the direction of travel. HOWEVER it is a common mistake for the horse to ‘cheat’ and completely turn the shoulders, chest, and front legs toward the direction of travel... that’s not leg yielding, in this case that's trotting a diagonal line. I need to ensure that my horse’s chest and front legs are facing forward towards A (or the short side you are looking at) so he is truly crossing his legs, not trotting a straight line towards his destination.

Once you are comfortable with the leg yield at walk, try trot, and even canter! Canter leg yields aren't popular (as they aren't in a formal dressage test) but the lateral work is great for suppling the back, and a very useful tool for warming up.

So now we have several tools to loosen and supple our horses: long lines of leg yield in all gaits, spiraling in and out, and the exercise of lengthening and shortening the neck.

These seem like easy exercises, but don’t let their simplicity fool you. I incorporate some form of one (or all!) of these exercises into almost every.single.ride.

Framing your Schedule.

We’ve talked about the 3 S’s a bit, but how do you fit them in? Every day I’m riding I pick a Core S; let’s say it’s Schooling. I have a ride mapped out (maybe I’m practicing a test, or a new movement, or my trainer is teaching me today) I will incorporate another Supplemental S into that same ride. Let's say, now I have a coreSchooling day, with supplemental Suppling exercises sprinkled in. I can use these exercises in my warmup, in my cool down, or after a particularly challenging schooling exercise. Vise versa! I can have a Suppling day and incorporate some Schooling into it (for example, I may work on some in-hand work before I get on, or once I get off).

This is generally how I frame my rides, I pick a different core everyday and back that up with a different supplemental. This keeps the work interesting, and ensures I'm not repeatedly overworking the same muscle groups.

Other Exercises

So, you’ve mastered everything already? Here’s some additional exercises to chew on…

turn on the forehand (in hand, or under saddle) from halt and walk
leg yield zig-zags
leg yielding into transitions, and transitions within leg yields
spiraling in and out into transitions
curved lines (serpentines, shallow loops, etc) I particularly love to use the exercise of lengthening and shortening the neck while changing bend on a serpentine- remembering not to let the horse rush forward or dive into my leg as we change bend.

The possibilities are truly endless!

So that’s it for today- we touched on Suppling: how to do it, when to use it, and some exercises on how to do so effectively; and we talked about ideal stretching and what to avoid.

Next time we move onto our next S…Strength Training! I’ve got some horsey high intensity interval training up my sleeve (it's only a little bit evil...I promise)