Published on 01/31/2006

The poor form in which gaited horses are commonly ridden predestines a high percentage of them to becoming hollow or sway backed. This results in saddle fitting problems, long term soundness issues and, too often, a horse that’s consequently not happy under saddle (read: sore, surly and snappish).

Part 1

This has traditionally been considered an unsolvable problem, since gaited horse training methods have been based on the premise that our horses need to be ridden in a stiff, hollow frame in order to be able to perform smooth gaits. This is simply not true. What is true is that our horses need to be extraordinarily comfortable in their tack in order to gait in a functionally healthy way with a moderately rounded back. I fear that in the past there’s been far too much emphasis placed on methods, when it would have been better from the horses’ perspective to rethink the original flawed training premises.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that you can practice simple ground techniques and riding exercises to help restructure the back of even an older riding horse. I’ll detail on ground back re-forming approaches in this online article, and follow up with some useful back strengthening riding techniques in the next.

The most useful on ground technique for helping your horse to round up is the belly lift. If you were to go down on your hands and knees and stretch your back upward, catlike, it would involve tightening and lifting your abdominal muscles. This is what you want to encourage your horse to do, as it will lessen the compression on the disks between your horse’s vertebra while encouraging development of the abdominal muscles. As with humans, good equine abdominals make for a stronger back.

There are two ways of performing the belly lift, depending on whether you work with a partner, or alone.

If working with a partner, have the other person stand on one side of your horse while you stand on the other. Reaching under the horse’s barrel immediately behind the girth, link hands with your assistant. Work together to use your linked hands to lift up under the horse’s barrel, so that it feels as though you are trying to ‘pick up’ the horse’s belly. Be sure to bend at the knees and use your leg, rather than back muscles, to do the lifting. If you observe the horse’s back closely, you’ll soon note a very slight rise to the back. When you obtain this rise, release pressure. Repeat this exercise twice more, moving six inches back each time.

If you’re working alone, then stand alongside your horse on one side, just behind the girth. Lay your flat hand along the horse’s barrel so that your finger tips can press the midline mark at the center of the horse’s barrel. Use your finger tips to press firmly upward, while pressing the heel of your hand UP into the horse’s belly. Again, do the lifts from your legs, and press until you notice a slight rise in the horse’s back (this may be accompanied by a relieved sigh).

This technique should be practiced routinely at least once every day. When you ride your horse, it should be done before mounting, once every hour during the ride, and again upon dismounting.

Exercise: Slice a carrot up in thin pieces–not too large, or you may cause your horse to choke. Stand at the horse’s left shoulder with a thin slice of carrot in hand. Hold a piece of carrot low, near the point of shoulder, and ask the horse to lower its head down as far as it comfortably can to get a bite. Repeat this stretching exercise to the front and center of the horse’s chest, then move to the other side and repeat at the right shoulder.

This technique should be practiced routinely at least once every day. When you ride your horse, it should be done before mounting, once every hour during the ride, and again upon dismounting.

Next, working at the horse’s side but placing the carrot from behind the horse’s front legs, position the carrot beneath the horse’s barrel, right behind the knees. Again, move the carrot so that the horse has to stretch out to gain a bite of reward. Use the carrot incentive to ask your horse to stretch his head and neck to the side–first to the elbow, then the lower barrel, and increasing the stretch until you’re asking him to reach all the way back to his stifle. Now repeat these side bending exercises, only ask him to reach up higher on his body–center of the shoulder blade, mid-barrel, and hip. Be sure to repeat each sequence to each side.

These exercises will take only a few moments a day, but will garner rich rewards both in the relationship that your hands-on work will create between your and your horse, and in a complete and healthy reformation of your horse’s hard-working back!

Part 2

My last article outlined steps that can be taken when working from the ground to help relieve problems with the hollow backed horse. This article will give an overview of the primary riding technique that you must master in order to strengthen and raise those back (and abdominal) muscles.

Some people will question the usefulness of this kind of discipline, but I assure you that the time spent working to correct and strengthen your horse’s back will pay rich dividends. Your horse will be easier to fit for saddle, have a happier attitude due to less stress and pain in the body–and ultimately, enjoy many more years as a useful riding mount. The exercises outlined in this series are easy to master, and one need only spend 10-15 minutes, three or four times a week, to garner the above results. (However, you must take these lessons to heart, and always ride with the correct balance of forward impulsion/contact on the bit to obtain and maintain optimum results.)

The Gear

Just as any exercise requires certain types of gear, so too does this work. The first thing you need to do when starting this routine is make certain there is no bridging in the saddle you ride. By this, I mean that the bars of the saddle tree lay flat along the entire topline on either side of your horse’s back, with no gap under the seat. Since we’re talking about a hollow back, this is almost surely going to require the use of a bridge pad. Otherwise, the weight of the rider is concentrated at either side of the shoulder, and at the loins. As you might imagine, this creates a considerable amount of pressure point pain and discomfort at these points. The horse’s response is to try to flatten it’s back down away from the pain, which only exacerbates the problem. If you imagine walking in a shoe with a pebble in the heel, and another in the toe. . .you’ll begin to get an idea of how this works (or rather, doesn’t work) for the horse.

We offer the Have-a-Heart™ bridge pad to alleviate this problem. Its design allows you to place the rounded edges of the ‘‘heart’’ right in the cup behind the horse’s withers. This perfectly fills in the hollow area of the back so that the weight of the rider is properly distributed along the entire back of the horse. There are two layers of open cell foam within the pad, so you can easily adjust the pad to suit the degree of sway as the horse’s back is re-formed.

Let it also be noted that your horse must be able to transfer action up from the loins through the back and neck, especially when performing a saddle gait. If you want those back muscles to become healthy and useful, then they can’t be restricted by a saddle that acts like a stationery splint tied on and held firmly down under the weight of the rider. Some of the horses we are called to work with have back muscles that feel like cardboard–there’s very little life left in them. This is usually a direct result of poor saddle dynamics. ‘Nuff said. . .

The Most Important Exercise

To begin this exercise, mount up. Use the Imus Comfort Gait Bit. If you don’t own one (shame on you!), use a simple snaffle. Do not try these exercises using any other type of bit with a curb (shanks). The action of other curb bits cannot communicate lateral cues as well, and will ultimately be counter productive to your purposes.

Ride with one hand on each rein, held at pelvic level. Ask your horse for an active walk, with little or no contact on the bit. (How to determine correct contact: if the horse braces against the bit, lessen contact. You want your horse to lower its head.) At some point your horse will start ‘reaching,’ or lowering its head to ask for contact. This is a good thing. When it happens, take just a touch more contact on the reins, while using your seat and legs at the same time to continue to ask for forward motion. The more active the walk, the better.

Once the horse is moving forward loosely and comfortably, ask for a correct halt. This requires that you push your horse forward with your seat and legs while you take evenly on both reins. In effect, you’re driving your horse’s body into the bit, which acts as a sort of wall. The driving with your seat/legs must come ahead of the pulling on the reins, in order to be effective for our purposes. The purpose here is to get your horse pushing with his back end and rounding up through the back when he hits the ‘wall.’ You do not want to pull on the reins so hard that the horse stiffens up, raises its head, and hollows its back. We are not suggesting—as it too often is—that you ride with ‘one foot on the accelerator and one foot on the brake.’ If you do this with a motor vehicle, you’ll wear out the brakes. If you do this with a horse, you’ll wear out the back. This is as much an art as it is a science–but an art most horsemen can master, if they choose to do so.

Once the horse has halted, maintain slightly more contact on the bit (again, don’t let him/her stiffen or brace up on it), and ask him to immediately move off again at an active walk. Now, every 10-15 strides, repeat this halt/walk sequence. At first the horse may appear confused. Don’t worry, but remain consistent with your cues, and attentive to your horse. If the horse begins to brace against the bit, then lessen the contact until you hit an active, but relaxed, response to your halt cues.

Now that you’ve perfected the halt, let’s go on to the half halt. This is exactly like the halt, except that after you’ve cued for the halt. . .and before the horse has actually stopped. . .you immediately push the horse forward with the slightly shortened rein. Remember: slightly shortened . If you ride with too much contact, too soon, the horse will certainly brace against the bit and go in its usual hollowed out form. Old habits, to say nothing of muscle memory, will be working against you–especially for the first few sessions. You need to be acutely aware of your horse’s responses, and teach him how to move, and halt, actively and in good form.

This is the first and most important back re-forming exercise you can do. If you think that this is ‘too easy,’ then you don’t understand the exercise, and how imperative it is to the reformation process! I can’t emphasize enough the importance of being aware of your horse’s body, and how it is responding to your tack and basic riding cues. You should plan to practice this correct halting and half halting for several sessions, before moving on to the next portion of our “Hollow Horse Reformation” article series. Part III will be our next online article!

Many happy–and smooth–trails!

Part 3

Now that you’ve learned how to do exercises from the ground for your hollow backed horse, and have made sure that your tack isn’t causing any more problems, you’re ready for under saddle work. Let me start by telling you what not to do when you work your hollow horse.

First, do not try to lift the horse’s belly/back by prodding at it with the heel of your boot. This throws you into an untenable position in the saddle, which only makes things worse. It also annoys your horse. Trust me on this one.

Also, do not think you’re ‘collecting’ your horse just by shortening the reins for a lot of contact. Unless the energy is being generated from the hind quarters and being appropriately collected onto the bit, then your horse will shorten it’s frame. . .by hollowing its back.

You need to generate forward energy that is ‘caught’ up on the bridle so that the horse is encouraged to shorten its frame by lifting its back. Start this work by asking the horse to move forward as energetically as possible at a simple walk–don’t try to get any gait. Then request a halt by pushing with your seat, and then taking with your reins (remember: push then take). What you're doing is 'collecting' that forward energy on the bridle, so that the bridle acts somewhat like a wall against which the horse stops.

When the horse's energy is brought up against the bridle, and he begins to slow down, continue squeezing with your thighs, take up more on the reins and ask him to stop energetically. Pretend it’s a mini sliding stop. Once he's halted, immediately ask him to move energetically forward again by pushing with your seat and squeezing with your legs–however, do not give back all of the rein you took up for the halt. You want your horse to come up onto the bridle with some contact, so that its frame shortens and the back rounds up. How much contact you maintain depends upon the horse, and you’ll need to stay attuned for cues to know how much rein contact to maintain.

If your horse stiffens up its frame so that it loses all or most of its head action at the walk, then give up a bit more rein. If the head is swinging back and forth, rather than up and down, then you’ve probably given up too much rein because the horse is moving laterally. In that case perform another halt, and keep hold of a bit more rein. You want to feel your horse’s back moving underneath you, and see the energy flowing through to the neck, poll and head via energetic head action.

Once you’ve got a feel for the halt, try some rein backs. To do a proper rein back, start with the halt, but rather than pushing your horse immediately forward, continue to push with your seat/legs and take on the reins until the horse takes a step back–then ask for forward action and maintain appropriate contact on the bit. All of this helps tremendously to get your horse gathered up and moving off its haunches.

Now that you’ve done a correct halt, and a couple of rein backs, it’s time to practice the half halt. This exercise is the most important one for helping to correct the hollow backed horse. You start exactly as though you are going to ask the horse to halt. The instant you feel the horse hesitate, maintain rein contact and push the horse forward into an even more active walk. What you’ve done is rebalance the horse over its haunches, rounded up the back, and lifted the belly. Every time your horse gets high headed, stiff, or starts falling out of correct walk or gait form, do a good active halt halt. Practice half halting as you go down the trail, every 10-12 strides. Do them while traveling downhill. While it is a lot of work for the horse (and at first, for you too!), it will result in a much stronger back, better balanced horse, and vastly improved saddle gaits.

If you’re working out of my Imus Comfort Gait Bit (and you should be), the next series of exercises will develop your horse’s lateral abdominal muscle structures, which in turn help to support the back.

Lay out several cones, about 20' apart. (You can buy these at most sport supply stores, and they are a good investment for working your horse.) At a good active walk, and using two hands and a long, low, leading rein, ask your horse to do serpentines around these cones. The horse’s head should be about level with its poll. If it drops its head lower, or ‘rubbernecks’ around the turns, use your inside leg at the shoulder to ask it to lift more in front. Remember when you take on the inside rein to give on the outside rein, or you’ll be sending conflicting signals.

After you’ve done several rounds of serpentines, work on figure eights using the same rein technique. Then do increasing/decreasing circular spirals, using the inside cones to define the center of your spiral circles, and the outside cones to define the outside edge of your spiral circles. Again, don’t permit the horse to rubberneck around the spirals, but maintain slight contact on the outside rein and use your foot to keep the inside shoulder lifted.

Your horse’s head should not only not be too low, but also should not be too high. The idea is to get the horse to move with a fairly level topline while bending laterally in either direction. The spiral exercises help the horse to increase the degree of flexion gradually.

Working a horse over poles on the ground can also help convert the hollow backed horse. Set the poles about 10' apart–ideally, they will be about 1-1/2 times the length of your horse’s body. Again, work at a very active walk with moderate contact on the reins. Your horse will want to look down to see where the poles are–the lowered head with impulsion from behind will lift the belly and round up the back.

If they’re to be of good effect, these exercises must all be done from a good, active swinging walk. Though the horse may want to slow down over cones or on circles/serpentines, the whole idea is to encourage ongoing engagement from the hind end. So be steady and persistent in your request for an active walk.

Don’t overdo these lessons, as the horse will require time to become strong enough to work for more than 10 minutes or so at a time. Mix up the serpentines, figure eights and spirals with good active, collected walk. Allow the horse to move at a nice slow dog walk every 5 minutes or so, to prevent the muscles from tightening up (remember: tight, stiff muscles=hollow back).

When you’re done with these exercises, do a few belly lifts and carrot stretches from the ground after untacking.

I encourage you to work with our ‘Have-a-Heart™’ Bridge pad, to prevent pressure point soreness due to bridging. Be sure to check the padding after the first half dozen sessions or so to see if you need to remove one layer of padding. If you do these exercises 3-5 times a week, and consistently ride with good impulsion/collection even out on the trail, you will begin to see results within two or three weeks. Most horses can be completely re-formed in 3-6 months, so you’ll be able to do away with the pad altogether.

Many happy, smooth–and sound–trails!