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  Twin Sister to Queen Boobie
Posts: 13315
   
Location: East Tennessee but who knows?! | In other disciplines, they talk about how a horse's build impacts their ability to reach underneath themselves, or bend. A longer back may keep them from bending as easily, or a short backed horse may not be able to round as well.
How do you think conformation impacts the running & turning style that a horse develops over time, if you let them develop it on their own once they know the job?
The reason I'm asking is that I have a prospect I'm re-training that is longer built. One of the big things we're having to work on is bending, and teaching him to keep his hip underneath himself in circles. Aside from just needing a lot of teaching & softening, I think his build somewhat pre-disposes him to that anyhow.
Which brings up the running style. Do you think his build will impact how much bend he'll naturally have when he starts running a little more on his own?
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 The BHW Book Worm
Posts: 1768
 
| My mare is built like a pool noodle. She is 15.1 and wears a 82-84" blanket depending on brand. She is NOT a snap back style horse she is extreamly flexable and can run full tilt bent in half. In competition it never looks like she slows because she gathers up flexed and keeps momentum. A local trainer nick named her the pretzel. So I don't think it's always true long horses aren't flexable but I will say after having a trend of long bodied horses they need alot more work learning to follow there hip. In my experience the want to leave there hind end way out behind them not necessarily running the pattern but tracking in a straight line. The really short bodied horses tend to track up and travel on there hind end much more naturally. Wanted to add now that I have seen your photo if you add another 5 inches to that horse it would be about how long my mare is
Edited by Thistle2011 2016-02-17 8:25 PM
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I just read the headlines
Posts: 4483
| Agree with Thistle. |
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Twin Sister to Queen Boobie
Posts: 13315
Location: East Tennessee but who knows?! | Thistle2011 - 2016-02-17 8:20 PM My mare is built like a pool noodle. She is 15.1 and wears a 82-84" blanket depending on brand. She is NOT a snap back style horse she is extreamly flexable and can run full tilt bent in half. In competition it never looks like she slows because she gathers up flexed and keeps momentum. A local trainer nick named her the pretzel. So I don't think it's always true long horses aren't flexable but I will say after having a trend of long bodied horses they need alot more work learning to follow there hip. In my experience the want to leave there hind end way out behind them not necessarily running the pattern but tracking in a straight line. The really short bodied horses tend to track up and travel on there hind end much more naturally. Wanted to add now that I have seen your photo if you add another 5 inches to that horse it would be about how long my mare is
Pool noodle is a good description!!  I had been calling him a broom handle because he was thin & stiff!
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1131
| The mare in my profile picture had a long back, and she had a lot of lower back/hip problems when we ran her hard. Don't know if the long back caused the pain/extra stress or not, but that is something we noticed. But yes, they are NOT as bendy, the mare in my profile picture had a very rollback kind of style when she was feeling good. She could flex and bend, but it was not as easy for her (add to the long back, she was 16 hands and 1300lbs, she was NOT your typical looking barrel horse). |
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The Advice Guru
Posts: 6419
| My long bodied horses were very flexible and would wrap a barrel effortlessly.
My compact horses would run 4 wheeled drive around the barrel, more in a box form, and I had more difficulty with them dumping in their front end to engage in a turn. I had to work on elevated no the front end, driving the hind.
If he isn't bending well, I would be ruling out soreness, chiro, massage |
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Expert
Posts: 2685
| great thread.
I have a mare that is what I would call a thicker, more compact horse that's right at 15.1 that will get low and turn a barrel but like others have said, will dump on her front end if you don't send her in hard and sit at the barrels hard. I got in the habit of sitting but leaning forward and putting my hand down thinking im letting her turn and staying out of her way when in fact I was allowing her to dump on the front end. That's the red mare.
The black mare I just started on barrels and is OTT. She is 15.3 and whil she is still relatively short backed, she is LONG legged. The thinner built horse. She has the tendency to "lose" her hind end when loping to the left. Its hard for her to keep under herself. She lifts in the front end well but I don't always feel like her back end is under there to catch us lol. I do a lot of hip movement to the inside at the trot and lope to try to get her in the habit of keeping the inside hip up under her. She gets mad at me and swishes her tail but understands the cue and does it. We just started loping the pattern last week and I have noticed that if she loses her momentum or quits focusing, that's when her hip wants to float but if I keep her moving and stabilized, its beautiful.
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 669
Location: Central Texas | cheryl makofka - 2016-02-17 9:16 PM
My long bodied horses were very flexible and would wrap a barrel effortlessly.
My compact horses would run 4 wheeled drive around the barrel, more in a box form, and I had more difficulty with them dumping in their front end to engage in a turn. I had to work on elevated no the front end, driving the hind.
If he isn't bending well, I would be ruling out soreness, chiro, massage
This has been my experience with my long and short bodied horses as well. I've had absolutely no problems getting the long bodied ones to bend and wrap, in fact my retired mare was almost to flexible. My short backed one turned the barrel in 4 wheel drive mode as well. |
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I just read the headlines
Posts: 4483
| ampratt - 2016-02-18 8:53 AM
cheryl makofka - 2016-02-17 9:16 PM
My long bodied horses were very flexible and would wrap a barrel effortlessly.
My compact horses would run 4 wheeled drive around the barrel, more in a box form, and I had more difficulty with them dumping in their front end to engage in a turn. I had to work on elevated no the front end, driving the hind.
If he isn't bending well, I would be ruling out soreness, chiro, massage
This has been my experience with my long and short bodied horses as well. I've had absolutely no problems getting the long bodied ones to bend and wrap, in fact my retired mare was almost to flexible. My short backed one turned the barrel in 4 wheel drive mode as well.
My experience as well. I will say my long backed horse never lost his hind end and was very powerful coming off the barrels, yet extremely smooth around them. Wanda got on him at a clinic and when she got off, she scolded me for not telling her how powerful he was coming off the barrels. LOL, I was young and thought he was smooth coming off of them, too.
I think it boils down to the individual horse,though, like it seems to in everything else.  |
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