Falling Forward How to recognize it
Something I see fairly often is a horse that is
'falling forward.' This is usually referred to as 'on
the forehand.' As one teacher pointed out, all
horses are 'on the forehand.' (If they weren't, they'd be
rearing.) But if for sure feels this way - like all
the weight is on the forehand and who knows where the back
end is. It certainly isn't carrying much of the
horse.
If you've been on this horse, you recognize it by the
sensation you have that you're always about to topple over
forward. Their chest is digging a trench in the
ground, they're 'leaning' on your hands, your arms feel ten
feet longer by the end of the ride -- this is not a light
horse. It isn't maneuverable. It usually
doesn't have a lot of get up and go and a lot of times it
stumbles in front, re-enforcing that feeling you're about
to topple over.
I've met a lot of folks with horses like this that
haven't been educated to see what's going on mechanically,
so I'd like to share a very simple way to know if a horse
is 'on the forehand.' This will help with
understanding 'what is going wrong' and from there we can
start talking about what to do to 'make it all better.'
The basics of this 'diagnostic' is an equilateral
triangle. This is a triangle that is
symmetrical. If you were to drop a plumb line from
the top, it would split it in half. The front half
and the back half would be the same size. If the
horse is tracking left, then:
(nerdy part, which you don't need to know: in a
balanced horse, in terms of timing, we're talking about the
timing of when the hoof hits the ground, the horse's body
passes over the supporting leg, and when the hoof leaves the
ground. The first half of the swing the horse uses
muscle to pull itself forward through space. When the
leg is upright, the leg is at it's height of muscular
engagement. Immediately after that, that leg no longer
needs to use any muscle to move the horse forward. When
that hoof leaves the ground, the horse will use muscle to lift
its leg through space to get it back to the front of the
swing. As soon as the hoof makes contact with the
ground, it will begin engaging muscle to move the horse
forward through space.)
So the first part is knowing what kind of triangle we're looking
for. The next part is to get the horse at a good trot on a straight line
where you can view it from the side. When you're used to seeing this you
can easily see it from the center of a lounge circle.
From there, you want to look at two triangles when the horse is at the
longest/widest part of it's leg swing. One is formed by the legs of the
front end and other is formed by the legs of the hind end.
- The triangle in the front doesn't have to have the same height as the
triangle in the back.
- When you drop the plumb line in the triangle in front, you get two
smaller triangles the same size.
- When you drop the plumb line in the triangle in back, you get two
smaller triangles the same size.
To illustrate this, here's three pictures I've lifted from the
internet. To begin with, let's assume all riders are doing their best and
love their horses. If I was better adept at picture taking, I could easily
put pictures of my own horses here.
First Picture
This first picture is of a pretty well balanced horse. Both triangles
are fairly equilateral. The front and back sides of both front and back
triangles are pretty much the same.
This is
a lower level of carriage, not extravagant, yet still good. The horse is
not collected. It's not 'sitting' and in a high degree of
self-carriage.
Both sets of legs, though, are doing their job pretty
well. The time that the front leg hits the ground to when the horse's mass
in on top of it is the same as the time that the horse's mass is on top of the
leg until when the leg leaves the ground behind.
Timing wise, as you watch you'll sense the rhythm of leg
hits the ground, horse passes over leg, leg leaves ground, leg
travels forward under horse, leg hits ground and it would be
very steady. Front-middle-back-middle-front-middle-back
- etc.
Note that the back triangle is taller than the front
triangle. That has nothing to do with 'falling
forward.' As it turns out, the front legs have to
move a little faster, but as long as they cover the same
distance, we have balance.
Second Picture
This second picture is of a horse that is falling
forward in this moment. (I will for sure get
pictures of my own horses soon so that I don't have to worry
about anyone thinking I'm picking on them!)
In both the front triangle and the back triangle, the
front halves of the triangles are smaller. If we were to
see this horse in motion, we would have the sense that the
legs are 'behind' the horse, or that the horse was 'in front
of' its legs. They really look like there's nothing much
to hold them up.
Timing wise, the rhythm of legs would be: leg hits the
ground, horse passes over leg real quick, time goes by, leg
leaves ground, leg travels forward real quick under horse, leg
hits ground, repeat. Front-middle- way way back-quick
middle-quick front-middle- way way back - etc.
It's like these horse's can't reach forward and their legs are
stuck underneath them.
Third Picture
It's hard to find exactly the picture I want! What
I want is a picture where the front
halves of both triangles are larger. This shows a horse
that is learning to 'sit.' When you're on this kind of
horse, you have the vague, and wonderful, sensation that at
any time this horse could lift itself up into the sky.
When you look at this horse, it's as if the legs are in front
of it.
Although the feet aren't at the same level off the
ground, (and who would want to put yellow triangles on a
picture this lovely?!) I get the impression this horse has got the right
idea:
Helen Langehanenberg
and Damon Hill
Photo: Kit Houghton/FEI
from http://www.an-eventful-life.com.au/dressage-news/
At the time that I'm writing this, there's a pretty good
article online at
http://www.dressageart.com/l_dressage_judge_b.htm
That article covers some other information as well.
For the moment, I'm just introducing the idea that
you can look at how the horse's legs are traveling and it can
tell you if the horse is in self-carriage or if it is falling
forward.
Another way to think of this is 'where is the bottom of
the triangle?' If it's flat to the ground, the horse is doing
good. If it's off the ground in back, the horse is
toppling. If it's off the ground in front, the horse is
floating. (We want the float!)
Balanced |
Falling |
Floating |
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Check it out with your horse or other horses and let me know how it goes!
The next few write ups I'll discuss what can cause this and
how to go about getting back into balance. And if
you'd like some hands on, call me up for a
lesson.
Cheers!
L
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