Ep 7: How to Create Softness in Your Horse’s Ribcage
If you attend one of my clinics or follow along with any of my podcasts or YouTube videos, you’ll hear me talk a lot about keeping your horse soft in the face. While keeping your horse soft in the face is necessary in most disciplines, sometimes we forget about the other body parts that are connected to the horse’s face.
Your horse has five main body parts, and all five of those body parts have to be cohesive. Think about it like a piece of machinery. If one part is stuck, it usually impacts other parts of the equipment as well. The same is true with the anatomy of a horse. If your horse is not responsive to the pressure of your leg, it will get stiff in its head, neck, face, and ribcage.
If your horse tends to hang on your rein and drift down the arena when you’re loping a circle, this is a good indicator that its ribcage is stiff.
Stiffness causes a wide range of issues with a horse’s performance. In barrel racing, for example, a common issue I see at many of my clinics is when horses go by or dive into a barrel. When this happens, the horses’ hind quarters get strung out behind them and their backs become hollowed out. As a result, the only thing they can do to balance back out is to lunge forward.
One particular exercise that I do daily with any horse that I get on, whether it is starting a colt or riding a seasoned horse, is to soften them laterally and vertically before they ever take a step forward. When I step into the saddle, I immediately reach down on my rein and tip my horse’s nose to one side or the other. While its nose is tipped, I keep pressure against its ribcage and squeeze my horse forward so its front feet follow its nose. If I’m going to the right, I will still have some pressure with my right leg, but I will have more pressure with my left leg because that leg is what is keeping my forward motion. I’m going to keep my right leg against that horse because I want my horse to ride around my leg and to flex its ribcage around my leg. I want my horse to learn to balance on its hind inside leg, and my leg is going to become the pivot point. No matter the discipline, achieving that balance is one of the most fundamental motions a horse needs to be able to perform.
If you practice this maneuver on both sides repeatedly, what do you think is going to happen when you apply pressure to both reins? Your horse is going to step up underneath itself and become collected. When a horse is collected, it gets rounded in its back and becomes softer in its face. When a horse is balanced and collected in its back end, its shoulders will come up and open up a much wider range of movements that the horse can perform.
I do this exercise every time I get into the saddle because I want my horses to immediately associate the motion of me stepping in the stirrup with getting soft. In other words, I want them to activate the thinking side of their brain from the moment I step up into the saddle. When a horse is using the thinking side of their brain, they are very trainable. When they are using the reacting side of their brain, they are somewhat controllable, but they are not learning anything.
If you don’t communicate to your horse with some leg pressure during the foundational stages of training, they are going to associate that leg pressure with lining up their skeletal system, putting their body in straight line, and running forward. During the foundational phase, it is extremely important to help your horse understand that pressure from your legs does not mean “straighten and speed up” but rather to “collect, soften, and flex.”
The horses we breed have so much ability. We have all the horsepower we could ever need, but we do a very average job of developing it.
Think about it from your horse’s perspective… If contact from your hands or feet happens too quickly, your horse will get startled. When a horse gets startled, its natural instinct is to go into protection mode. The way horses protect themselves from excessive pressure or pain is to stiffen up and brace themselves on the bit. It is important to remember that any time we are riding, we are using the bridle for communication, not pain. Even if you don’t consider yourself to be very strong, you can still put a lot of pressure on that rein. You can’t just yank on the bridle out of nowhere, especially when the horse is running at full speed. You have to help your horse recognize slight pressure on the reins and associate that with collection, your horse’s performance will progress much more quickly and consistently.
When your horse is loose in the pasture, it can already do the exercises you are asking it to do without any assistance. The key is, you have to communicate to that animal when you want them to perform those particular movements. That is horsemanship.
I read a quote the other day, and to me, it fits perfectly with this exercise. “The will to win is worthless if you do not have the will to prepare.” Doing certain things that help you communicate better with your horse is a demonstration of the will to prepare. Never be afraid to continue learning, and never be afraid to ask for help.
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