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THE BALANCE OF POWER

ROGER FITZHARDINGE

If you were to erase the rider, the horse would remain in balance and this is how it should be: uphill, and light in the bridle.

Training a horse to perform to its best ability takes time, understanding, empathy and dedication. As with training a sportsperson, there are many ways to create the ultimate athlete.

Horses, like people, have individual attributes, personalities and physical and conformation traits to overcome, as well as varying work ethics. If only there was a handbook on the simple steps to making a Grand Prix horse… but there is no such book as there are so many ideas and ways to suit different horses – as with people – to choose from.

It is deciding which avenue to take and which turn to make at the crossroads that is so important. These decisions take experience and knowledge, which is why inexperienced riders and trainers need the eyes and ideas of a wise and experienced coach to make the correct choices. There is one major highway that is always important to stay on, no matter what deviations you take along the way, and that’s the Balance and Straightness Highway.

Dressage is not rocket science, it’s actually very logical. To perform any dressage movement from walk, pirouettes to piaffe and passage or extended trot, long-rein trot or walk, and every moment in any test, the horse must be in balance so he can show self-carriage and move his legs in an elegant and easy way. If he is not in balance he will struggle to perform any movement, and if harassed about making the movements when out of balance, he will give up and resist in no uncertain terms.

Make sure you are balanced first. If a rider is not in balance then the horse cannot be either.

IMAGINE THESE BALANCING ACTS:

1. Balance a broom vertically on your hand. If the broom tips forward you have to lurch forward to keep the balance; too bad if it falls from your hand. This is like a horse on the forehand running after the balance.

2. Visualise the horse as a horizontal bottle half full of water. If he leans forward, the water will flow forward and load the forehand. To stay in balance, a rider must help keep the horse’s balance as he rides forwards, backwards or sideways by encouraging the horse not to lurch or change his frame.

3. Visualise a person with someone on their shoulders. If the one on top leans forward, how can the bearer stand still? With great strength and difficulty. If they lean to the side, how hard is it to walk in a straight line? Possible, but it requires great strength to counter balance. Therefore, it’s of the utmost importance that the rider is always centred and in balance, following the horse to help with the poise and ease with which he can perform the movements.

In the first image, the horse’s balance is to the inside in the half pass, so he’s unable to raise and abduct the forearm. When he does in this instance, he falls to the left, which isn’t helped by the rider sitting to the inside – the result is a half pass that is likely to score a 5. In the second image, the pair paint a completely different picture! The horse’s weight is better balanced to the outside, enabling him to raise and abduct the left fore – the result is a beautiful half pass that could score a nine.

In dressage, as the horse gains a better understanding of balance and in taking the weight more over the hindlegs, then the forehand can be raised and the shoulders are more free to move. So, you ask, how do you do that? Good question, but again there are many ways to think about this. The horse’s neck is the most important piece of anatomy and balancing mechanism that riders have at their disposal to alter a horse’s balance. This can be controlled through subtle rein aids and by teaching the horse to position the neck where the rider wants it. Up, down (longitudinal flexion) and left and right in combination with up and down (lateral flexion). Of course, the neck position is never an isolated technique and is always combined with varying degrees of forwardness.

It’s like a see-saw and you can only create as much forward desire and impulsion that you can keep in balance and in self-carriage. Once the balance is lost and the equilibrium gone, the “water” starts to run to the forehand, a nosedive is inevitable with the horse leaning in the bridle and running after the balance. When the forward outweighs the balance, then you need to slow down, regain the balance and proceed forward again. Hey presto! A half-halt!

The half-halt helps to get the balance and the water more in the hind end of the horse. The biggest thing then is to be able to keep that feeling of the weight over the hindlegs (water in the rump) and then, without changing the balance, ride the horse forward without feeling the water sloshing about! If it does, half-halt, regain the composure and the balance – the water level – and ride forward again.

Think of walking with a book balanced on your head. You are like the horse as it makes transitions forward and back, whether within the pace or from one pace to another. In the beginning, those transitions are done slowly so as to not lose the book, but as you learn more you can make very brisk movements forward and back without losing it.

In the first image, the “water level” is forward in the shoulders, meaning the horse is on the forehand and not in self-carriage. In the second image, the same horse now has the “water level” tilted back towards the rump, freeing up the forehand. The result is a horse that’s in self-carriage and absolute balance, enabling freedom.

Balance and power from Becky Moody and Jagerbomb at the Paris Olympic Games. Image by FEI/Benjamin Clark.

It is all about keeping your horse steady in the contact and so in the neck. This steady and round neck will be reflected in the way your horse can use his back. The reaching neck and the flexion at the poll encourage the horse to use the abdominal muscles. This strength through the core is what helps strengthen and support the back so the hindlegs can come more under the horse’s centre of gravity. Of course, to have good balance, a good strong core and back is essential, so no one thing can be isolated.  It can easily be seen that the shape of the neck has a wide-reaching effect on balance and stability.

Remember, the human neck is very short in proportion to the rest of our spine, while a horse’s neck is as long as the rest of its spine. It’s very easy to see the effect of what putting your chin on your chest does to your spine, shoulders and posture, so imagine how vulnerable a horse’s balance is with that long neck waving around if not controlled. It’s a huge pendulum that has huge consequences on the horse’s balance.


A steady neck produces better balance, and as the degree of collection occurs and the neck is shortened with the appropriate forward-contained energy, the horse’s balance comes more to the back end with the hind feet more under its body. Then the shoulders, neck and poll – in that order – can become raised, and there is more freedom of the front end and a lighter forehand for expression and fluency. The art is to get the balance over the hindleg (get the water in the rump), then when you ride forward you need to keep the shoulders, neck and poll in the same shape. That’s not riding forward with an ever longer and lower neck, as this will cause all the impulsion (water) to flow to the front end, again causing that dreaded downhill feeling! Remember, keep the go and the whoa the same! Keep the see-saw in equilibrium, keep the water stationary and in the rump end, making transitions in this balance.

Just as there is balance from the front to the back in seeing a sitting-more-uphill way of going, there is also a need to understand the sideways balance. Just as we make transitions forward and back in balance, we also need to understand the side-to-side balance to encourage wonderful, sweeping, sideways steps.

If a gymnast is to take a big, slow sideways step to the right, they first lean their upper body to the left so that the weight is taken off the leading leg and over to the opposite side. They are then able to slowly stretch the right leg over to the right and stay in balance; in fact, the wider the step the more the bodyweight is kept away from the leading leg.  So it is in any lateral work, such as in half-pass trot, that the bodyweight of the horse’s shoulder moves away from the leading shoulder and leg. For instance, in half-pass right, the horse keeps the weight over to the left to enable him to lift the inside leg up and away. This side-to-side balance is vitally important, especially as you require steeper angles and more reach.

For the rider, when a horse moves sideways the rider should be in balance directly above the horse’s body. Leaning to the inside in half-pass is counterproductive; if the weight is loaded over the inside shoulder of the horse then it will not be able to keep the bend and balance to lift the front leg up and sideways – he will simply hobble across with no freedom. The horse must be in balance back-to-front and side-to-side, and the rider must be in balance over the horse’s bodyweight.

Balance is the very simple key to making any horse better. Good balance through good training will show a horse the way to expressive, easy and happy work. The balance will produce honest self-carriage in a way that the rider does not need to support the horse in the reins or on the leg. Good balance is not achieved by strength – quite the opposite – but by progressive training in stretching and useful frames that are often not seen in the competition arena. The neck will help balance, and when in balance it enables the horse to develop the muscles for the foundation of a strong and athletically collected competition horse. As he develops the shoulders, neck and poll will become raised and arched and beautiful. The weight will come more to the sitting hind end and the horse will appear effortless in moving, just as a well-trained ballerina develops. Good balance developed through neck control and energetic forward riding is the key to dressage. In fact, it’s the key to making any ridden horse more comfortable for the rider and itself, no matter the discipline. EQ