Heavy on the forehand! Help!?

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Moonpig

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Hi everyone. I'm new to this forum. I have lovely grey mare who is a bit heavy on the forehand. She is a 5 year old 16.2 ISH. I have only had her for a month and we are bonding extremely well. We school 3 times a week, hack 1 and lunge 1. She loves to jump and is really scopey so i hope to increase the jump height but she just won't/ isn't able to sit on her bum! Can you recommend some exercises we can do to encourage her to engage her hind quarters. Hill work canter, poles?? Etc... We have a fab trainer but I'm always open to hear others peoples suggestions.
Thanks :-)
 
Hello & welcome to the forum :)

your new mare sounds lovely. I'm a massive fan of transitions for lifting the forehand personally, and of course, millions of circles, changes of rein etc etc. My personal fave exercise (although she may not be established/strong enough for this one yet) is a 3 loop serpentine with a 10m circle each time you touch the track.
 
Hello and welcome to the forum.

She's quite young so it may be just that she hasnt learnt how to carry herself in balance with a rider yet. Make sure you're not trying to lift her/carry her with your hands and use your legs to push her forward. Lightness comes from behind!

I've always found lots of transitions help and also changing direction often helps too - the worst thing is to trot endlessly round the outside of the school. Making sure you reward any moment of lightness. Another tip I found helped with my mare is carrying your hands a bit more than normal.

Its also easy to find yourself tipping forward a bit too and I used to have to fight it to make sure I was in a good position on my mare who liked to go on her forehand if she could (of course that might just be me and my tendency to crouch! :o ).

Probably havent told you anything you didnt already know lol
 
Maletto said:
Hello & welcome to the forum :)

your new mare sounds lovely. I'm a massive fan of transitions for lifting the forehand personally, and of course, millions of circles, changes of rein etc etc. My personal fave exercise (although she may not be established/strong enough for this one yet) is a 3 loop serpentine with a 10m circle each time you touch the track.
Click to expand...

Oo we were doing that last night in my lesson for that exact reason.
Plus lots of transitions from small trot to halt.
 
Hello and welcome.

Have to agree with everything that has been said so far. I also have a young ISH who was very heavy on forehand, but after doing loads of transitions firstly walk to halt, than gradually introducing walk to trot plus lots of long reining to help her build up the neccessary muscles to let her carry herself she has started to become very light in the hands as she is now carrying herself and working from behind.

Also found using poles very helpful I place a single pole, a set of two poles and a further set of 3 poles around the school which really makes her use her back end plus makes the session a bit more interesting. Have now also introduced a tiny cross pole into the mix so that a) she has to pick up that bit more from behind and b) teaching her not to rush into fences.

Good luck with her she sounds lovely :)
 
Couldn't agree more with the transitions. When I had my 17.1hh warmblood I did loads of transitions and leg yielding on the circle is great too but you will need to tailor it to what she is capable of. I was always told that when you move up the paces think of it coming from behind first, ie going from halt to walk the hind legs start the movement.
 
I do all of the above but my ISH at 10 would still prefer to jump with his nose on the floor so he is jumped in a fulmer gag. Obviously not what you would want to do with your young horse but (and this has been with professionial advice/training) this is what Goose jumps best in. Schooling is in a loose ring and hacking varies depending on fitness/last time out.
 
Thank you all sooo much!! Sounds like we are doing most of the things we should be! I like the serpentine with a 10m circle... Will keep her working hard. Lots of transitions sounds great!!! She is pretty switched on for her age and really enjoys the excersise! The poor thing has already had a foal prior to my purchasing and her fitness level and muscle tone is not as great as it should be! So I'm sure she will only get better. I do tend to carry her... Especially when we are jumping! I guess I should stop that :-)
Is it better towirk her mire in trot or canter??
 
To build up muscle I have been told to work in trot as it is in fact harder (uses more muscles) for a horse to trot than it is for them to canter. However I always do a bit of canter work at the end of our sessions, so that when we do work in canter it is not a massive deal.
 
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