Exercises for building topline

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sjdress

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Young horse came to me 3 months ago quite poor lacking any muscle / top line. I have been mainly hacking and pole work and he has improved loads but is still very weak behind the saddle.
Any exercises that will help with this? I appreciate its not been long and I’m very impressed with the changes already but I just want to support the horse as much as I can by getting him stronger and building him up for longevity
 
I'm at about the same stage in the journey. I've been walking Charlie in hand at first and now ridden as well, over cross country fences up to 60cm high, (he's 17 hands) it makes him really use his back muscles. And backing up. He couldn't do either to start with and is now really good at them. I do poles on the ground in walk and trot once a week. I tried raised poles but he learned in one session that he could just knock them down 😁

I'm off out to ride but I'll update on some ridden stuff later.
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Have you got a physio on board? A good bodyworker can check there's nothing stopping him building the correct muscles.

When you're out hacking a really good marching walk with him having to stretch down to take the contact helps no end. What is your hacking like in terms of terrain, hills etc?
 
I’ve just bought a lovely book called Core Conditioning for Horses which has well explained and graded exercises to encourage the horse to work correctly using its core and back.
 
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