is going to bleed locally into the muscles surrounding,” says Dr. Schlachter. Causes of neck problems can be osteoarthritis, OCD
fragments (which may cause arthritis later), bone spurs, trauma, and how humans take the horse’s neck out of its neutral position. “I see hunter necks that are compromised because they
are in only one position over a sustained period of time. Are head and neck position true causative agents for pathol- ogy in the neck? What about when the head and neck are in hyperflexion position? There is no definitive study,” says Dr. Rombach. “But if, as we do in sport, you have compressive force at speed over a sustained period and don’t allow the joints to come back to their normal neutral position, you are going to alter the joint mechanics [and] set up the potential for injury. That’s why cross training is so important.”
PATTI’S POINT OF VIEW From Inside the Judge’s Booth
very words. The frequency of this phrase got me thinking more about the neck and wondering which side of the judge’s booth has changed. What perhaps might seem like a trivial difference is actu-
A
ally a significant point. The judges are not saying “short neck.” They are saying “short in the neck.” What’s the difference? One phrase is saying that the horse has a short neck and the other is saying he is ridden with a short neck. Is it an important distinction? I think so. The ideal neck for a sport horse athlete is by nature longer
from the withers to the poll than from the chest to the throat- latch. It’s tied into the chest relatively high and shows strong balancing muscles developed along the top of the neck. When the opposite is the case, the neck seems to come out of the wither like a stick, straight on the top. It’s not that these horses cannot do the job, but the training is more difficult in the attempt to develop a horse with fluid, elegant movement, a soft poll and a good connection. Modern sport horse breeding worldwide now produces horses with better necks for dressage and jumping. So why then would we see horses short in the neck? Last year international trainer and German reitmaster Jo Hinnemann presented a paper written by General Albert
A good example of a modern sport horse neck on a four-year-old.
22 May/June 2017
s an active dressage scribe, I’ve noticed that more and more frequently judges have me write “short in the neck.” At times, I wished I had a rubber stamp of those
“From what I see horses put up with from weekend
warriors, like kids taking the barrel horses out and running them like crazy or horses being ridden twice a day, every day, to be fit enough to jump the highest level, I’ve realized there is a huge range of fitness and levels of training,” Dr. Schlachter adds. “So I can’t say one method is wrong. But you never want to take any body structure to the extreme range of motion.” The neck also pays for the misuse of other body structures.
“When there is an element of pain, the brain will find a way to keep the body moving when certain pathways shut off. If the core is weak, the neck has to somehow take over,” Dr. Rombach explains. “Everyone talks about stretching the back, but the back doesn’t stretch. It’s the core that needs activa- tion, not the back stretched.” “A horse with a rigid brachiocephalicus muscle, the underneck, is quite often in tension because the horse has
Stecken, who was responsible for rebuilding the German equestrian sport after World War II, to a meeting of FEI dressage judges at Warendorf, Germany. The paper discussed “short in the neck” and chastised judges for giving high scores and plac- ings to horses who traveled through their tests in this manner. General Stecken portrayed the correct horse as going
forward with active bending in the joints of the hindquarters, which leads to impulsion over a supple, swinging back and freely carries the neck with a giving poll as the highest point guided by a soft, even contact with the rider’s hands. The horse gives easily to the bit. On the other hand, he profiled a horse that no longer
shows a freely carried neck with a smooth arch from withers to poll. He attributed the cause of this short neck to either too much or not enough contact with the mouth. With too much contact, the nose drops behind the verti-
cal, the poll is not the highest point and the hindquarter activity is hindered. The fluidity and looseness of the neck, chest and leg muscles that lift and extend the forelegs is exchanged for short, quick, flat, expressionless and possibly uneven movement. “Too much contact can shut down the jumping ability of
the horse’s stride in canter. Further, the transitions will not swing through forwards and upwards over the back to the poll. The horse will not give or soften on the contact,” the general wrote. Alternatively, he found that too little contact with the
mouth, “is actually the lack of willingness to stretch the neck. The horse does not correctly step up to the bit. Usually, the mouth is fussy, where the horse is playing with the bit so much that it can be seen or heard. The connection from the hindquarter is lost, and goes out the hindquarter instead of forward over the back to the mouth and the rider’s hands,” he continued. Jo Hinneman, in his presentation to the FEI judges, stated:
“The horse is through when he accepts the aids for the rider, from back to front, from front to back, or from side to side
PSI Sporthorses
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