The benefits of balance for you and your Horse By Donna Cooksey


Holistic Equine Massage Therapy Practitioner R


iders come in all shapes and sizes, as do horses, and learning to maintain your balance is for every rider the main skill to achieve before you can really progress in any riding discipline. A balanced rider is able to maintain their centre of balance through all paces of walk, trot, canter and gallop. The riding posture is the position the rider establishes in the saddle at all paces, allowing them to use their legs, seat, and hands without losing their balance and not hang on the horse.


As the horse walks, the rider's hips will move with the horse's hind legs, their shoulders should follow with the horses shoulders. The motion creates movement through the lower back of the rider allowing the hips and shoulders to move in balance with the horse. Your hands should always be soft and go with the


horse, if you tighten yourself up here then you can potentially make the horse become unbalanced.. At the rising trot, the rider's weight is transferred from the seat to the stirrups with the two beat movement of the horse.


At the sitting trot, your weight is in the saddle, it is quite hard to maintain your balance but with the right exercises it can be mastered effectively. The two beat action creates jarring through the rider's body and this causes too much movement through the lower leg and hence loss of balance, making the rider react by grabbing with their hands or clinging through the knees or tilting forward and throwing themselves out of position, thus losing balance and putting pressure on the horse to fall on the forehand. The canter is a very comfortable pace, sitting deep in the saddle and feeling the


movement through your lower back. The horse uses their neck and forequarters to keep their balance. The horse will extend his neck or lift it high to keep his balance. If the rider uses their hands and the horse uses his neck..this is setting up a pull on the reins and lean on the bit scenario, to maintain balance, causing the horse to become heavy on the forehand.


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The rider can train the horse to use his quarters for balance by becoming less on the forehand. The rider can achieve this if they a have a balanced seat.


Putting you as the rider on a horse's back alters its balance, centre of gravity and biomechanics. We as riders should not interfere with the horse's movement. When we are unbalanced, it can have quite a detrimental effect on the muscle groups. The horse will use incorrect neck muscles in order to hold his position, causing an unnatural way of going for the horse thus creating imbalance and tension. Stiffness and resistance in the ridden horse is most often caused by imbalance and muscle tension. Riders owe it to their horses to ask the following questions:


Why is my horse stiff?


Is my own stiffness and imbalance contributing to my horse’s stiffness? Am I giving the appropriate aids? Am I pushing my horse beyond his capabilities? Does my horse have any painful physical issues? By improvements in the rider balance, and strengthening and balancing your horse, he will automatically regain his natural flexibility, becoming less tense and reducing musculoskeletal issues. Think about this, have you ever been riding and felt that your saddle is slipping. What do we all do, stand in one stirrup to shift yourself back to the middle. Think of the discomfort and pain this is putting your horse in. If the rider collapses at the waist and leans to one side. The horse will try to balance himself under the weight


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