Falling out through his shoulder

[Flicker]

Hi, my friend has been told that her warmblood is 'falling out through his shoulder' and isn't too sure what to look out for. I know it to see it, but am b*ggered if I know how to explain it to her. Unfortunately we livery on different yards, so I can't even go up and say 'see, there, what he's doing - that's falling out'.
Any brilliant definitions out there??

 

[Tempi]

it means his shoulder is collapsing to the outside in what movement it is she is doing. Its common in leg yield and shoulder in when not enough outside rein is use to keep the shoulders 'upright' and quarters under.

 

[HBII]

There is an article in this months Your Horse that explains how a horse falls out through its shoulder - cant remember the article but its the one with all the leg yielding and turn on the forehands - riding a chestnut horse.

I know what it means but Id be here all day trying to explain it as I am pants at explaining things lol

Hb

 

[PLAYBOY]

Green or young horses often unbalanced fall threw the shoulder u need to concerate on sitting tall not dropping ur inside rein when ur horse front end drops ont the inside and riding on forward "!
"allways easier said than done! "

 

[SouthWestWhippet]

I dunno if this will help you explain it to your but I think of it in terms of physics.

Newton's First Law states that an object will remain at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an external force. Centrapetal force is the force that acts upon an object travelling in a straight line to force it onto a circle.

So if you think of the horse following Newton's First Law, to ride a circle you need to create centrapetal force to push his outside shoulder around the circle. You use your outside rein to do this, by blocking the forward movement of the outside shoulder and causing him to move sideways.

So falling out, is where you are innefficiant in your blocking of the outside shoulder and it continues to travel in a straight line (or not fully around the circle) even though his neck/head might be bent around the circle. I.e. you do not create enough centrapetal force to push him off Newton's First Law.

I think I'm going to run away and hide now before everyone calls me a total geek

but this really helped me to understand what falling in/out was.

 

[Oldred]

I would explain it this way: the horse is attempting to bend around a curve (either corner or circle etc) but is not bending through its ribcage. Its body is therefore 'straight' so to make the curve the horse 'jackknifes' at the wither/neck and the shoulders try to follow the direction of the curve but the horse's body isn't affected. Visualise the handlebars of a bike round a right bend - the left handlebar goes 'out' and the inner one goes comes back towards the cyclists knee. This is what happens subtlely to the horse.

The fix is to make the rider focus on 'feel' from the seat (good symetrical position needed with no tension) to detect when, by the use of the inside weight aid, seatbone, thigh and leg, the horse has moved his ribcage towards the outside aids. Then the outside aids - outside leg towards shoulder initially if necessary to correct a long standing habit - and the outside rein can create a 'guardrail/guide' to keep the horse from straying outwards and to stabilise the wither,neck, shoulder and keep it as one unit, not jackknifing. The outside rein must not block forward movement.

The problem is often too much inside rein to get and keep the bend and not enough feel from the seat as to what is happening in the horse's long back muscles.

I would work at the walk to start with, going into the corners, creating the correct bend progressing up to bending work via loops and serpentines.

Also try walk to canter on a straight line in true canter and when that is established try walk/counter canter on straight line. It really focusses the mind as to whether you have true bend from your seat to the horse's back.

Another problem is of course that a horse will be stiffer one way than the other and the quarters will be a little too much to the inside one way and need a gentle tap with a long schooling whip to realign them. What seems to happen is that if the horse is easier initially to ride on a right bend (but goes out his outside shoulder) his quarters are often too far to the inside of the bend and they 'push' the forehand out to the outside. If they are made to 'follow' behind in a straighter line the horse can make a correct bend through the ribcage.

I do hope the above makes sense! Good luck

 

[SarahNZ]

Simply put, the bend is through the shoulder to the outside, and at the very base of the neck instead of evenly throughout the whole body. Oldred describes it well above.

Please be aware that you do NOT use the inside rein to fix it, you must become softer with the inside rein (and learn to turn corners with your outside aids). It usually is a sign that the horse is not taking a good equal contact in both reins or that too much inside rein is being used (which is often one in the same), and is therefore too light in the contact on the outside rein, enabling the 'fallout' of the shoulder.

There are lots of exercise to improve this, one of the main ones is to use slight flexion to the outside, improving the 'weight' of the contact on the outside rein and also the outside leg, then slowly and lightly flex back to the inside, without releasing the pressure on the outside rein/leg (a wall!). Keeping that wall on the outside, between the outside leg and outside hand are important in this exercise, as this is what re-establishes the contact in the rein.

It really comes back to learning how to turn a corner on your horse correctly.

When I was learning my trainer always told me that the horse from his ears to his tail as well as your hands, should be within 'railroad tracks' , which allows for only very small movements of your body and his. If you imagine this when riding then you will see that the head should be in the middle of the chest, with the hindquarters following through. It also shows that the angle of his shoulders, and yours should be the same etc.

 

[Sparklet]

As a fellow suffer of 'shoulder losage' this all makes perfect sense. Would just like to add that holding the reins too high will contribute, as I have found to my cost, because your outisde guide (mentioned in oldred's post) will not be effective because the horse will escape underneath.

Blimey I hope that makes sense.