Why Straightness Matters to Your Riding

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I remember my mentor, Jack Brainard, explaining to our class why it was so important to develop a straight horse. I remember thinking to myself “Straight horse? What the heck does he mean by that? Aren’t all horses naturally straight?”
While I never did learn exactly what he meant during my study with him, I did eventually figure it out. My desire to learn the principles and purpose of straight led me to the great masters of classical horsemanship and training.
One of the first classical principles to correct training and development of a riding horse is straightness. Horses are not naturally straight. They are also not naturally strong and balanced to handle the type of ground and riding we expect of them.
Horses, like people, are not born symmetrical, meaning balanced or equal on both sides of their bodies. While being asymmetrical doesn’t create problems for natural activities in our horses like playing, running or grazing. It does create huge problems when either the rider’s weight is added, or our horses are being trained often.
An example is training your horse for liberty or lunging. If our horse doesn’t learn first how to carry themselves evenly, or distribute their weight evenly, they risk creating wear and pain and can eventually develop lameness and soundness issues over time.
By now you might be asking why horses aren’t symmetrical, or what causes asymmetry in our horses? The main reason is horses do not naturally distribute their weight evenly on all four legs.
Because horses are natural grazers and spend most of their time grazing, most of their weight is placed on their forehand, front legs. They are also built to carry weight on the forehand vs the hind end, where weight loading should be.
If you train and ride a non-gaited horse, the horse’s weight is predominantly found in the front end. And, if you ride a gaited horse the weight is more naturally dispersed amongst all four legs, however, gaited horses in general have weak hind ends.
To complicate things even more, the four legs of our horse are not perfectly straight nor are their legs or hooves even. This causes most horses to lean or bend naturally to one side.
Examples of uneven or imbalanced legs would be the pillars of a boat dock or the frame of an apartment building.
Having straight and even pillars will either help or hinder the frames ability to maintain weight. After time and general wear and tear, the frame will either collapse or break down due to asymmetry.
Here are the areas we need to pay attention to when training and riding that indicate asymmetry and balance issues in our horses:
-Difficulty steering
-Difficulty backing up
-Trouble bending to one or both sides
-Difficulty suppling longitudinally
-Difficulty tracking up
-Leaning or dropping a shoulder when turning
-Anxious cantering in a circle
-Trouble picking up the right lead
-Trouble with lead changes
-Difficulty collecting in movement
How do we Begin Changing this?
I begin with a physical assessment, both standing still and through lunging the horse and in all gaits so I can see how they travel, meaning are they regular, relaxed, straight and balanced.
When doing a physical assessment, there are 3 specific conformational areas I examine on my horse:
-Topline muscling or lack of
-Shoulder muscling, specifically scapula area
-Hooves - are they symmetrical - are their flares, one side higher than the other, what is the heel or toe growth look like and why?
I also recommend standing behind your horse and on a mounting block so you can look at their back, shoulders, and neck area. You are looking for the following:
-Are they straight through their spine or crooked?
-Does one side of their shoulder bulge (over developed) or drop (underdeveloped)?
I offer straightness training and a whole lot more in both my Spirituality Course and MasteryMembership Riding Foundation Program. Please click here for details: www.taoofhorse....