Dressage horses: hindquarter and leg engagement, also supplements!

[GraceDawson]

Hi all!

My 4yr old Fjord is doing well at dressage, scoring over 60% in our second prelim (unaff).

Just wondered how I can get his hindlegs working more, because he is a driving breed and naturally heavy on the forehand for pulling a cart, his back legs put in minimum effort to go somewhere. Is there a way I can improve his engagement?

Also, is the feedmark dressage sucess supplement any good?

 

[rara007]

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because he is a driving breed and naturally heavy on the forehand for pulling a cart, his back legs put in minimum effort to go somewhere.

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Be very careful what you say

You don't need me to show driving pictures with engagement do you

Yes, every driving horse you see out hacking, and with the gypsies may pull with a huge shoulder, but what proportion of ridden horses do you see perfectly engaged hacking past? Personally all the riding horses hacking past here are lame or so badly behaved you can't tell what pace they are in but

Rant over.

In a 4 YO forehand heavy breed in comparision to warmbloods I don't think you need to be asking for much engagement, just a correct, fowards way of going just oevrtracking. You should be able to win at preliminary like this- The bottom of some sheets says somthign like, 'working fowards and round but without collection' I *think* although I may have made that up.

 

[GraceDawson]

ooo, no offence meant, he is just a foreign breed for working over mountainous conditions, so to maximise energy conservation over rough terrain he is not as springy behind as other breeds, of course there are driving horses with engagement but mine isn't driven and not trained that way. can see fab pics from your signature anyway!

 

[mygeorge]

you can get more engagement from behind and the lightness of the forehand with the equiami lunging aid. we use it all the time now and it works a treat and is so simple to use. after years of struggling this has beed a godsend

 

[horseywelsh]

i know what you mean, my horse is a welsh cob and would love to trot and pull with his shoulders if i would let him.

To engage the hindquarters more firstly the muscles need to be strong. So lots of walking up hills/even trotting if you horse is fit enough. Can also build strength in the hindquarters by raised trotting pole exercises. Once the muscles can cope, u can do lots and lots of transitions, to get horse to "sit" and take the weight back onto hindquarters, lifting the forehand and resulting in greater engagment, i.e. vary eventually so you can vary the trot between WT, MT and a slight collected trot, same in canter etc.

Also while hacking out, make sure you are working the horse too, not allowing him to fall on his forehand, lots of transitions, and hillwork

Jumping (even teenyweeny little crosses) will also help build muscles in the bottom.

 

[GinaGem]

I don't know if they are all the same but it has taken Badger our Fjord quite a long time to become balanced enough to start pushing properly from behind (and he's still learning). i think it's partly because he doesn't get schooled a lot because mum who rides him most of the time is a novice but also it's taken a good year for him to really grow into himself and get strong. he's 6 coming up 7 and we've had him a year. He was a bit poor when we bought him though.

He's found canter really hard but he's now really starting to get balanced and with that it's just been practice and transisitions.

If he's strong enough i'd kept working on lot of changes through the transistions and make sure he's forward and pushing between them. If he's anything like Badger i think it's quite important not to let him 'die' and slop along on the downwards transistions!

 

[horseywelsh]

it does take a while in my opinion for them to be strong enough to be able to push properly from behind, it can vary for each horse - i had a pony who you could tell a noticeable difference in 6 months, but it has taken my welsh lad a couple of years.

if you can get someone to video you once a month etc, and then you should be able to see some difference.

agree with -Gina- the downward transitions are as important as the upwards