"On the forehand"

No photos but on the forehand to me is when a horse isn't working from behind so is leaning on your hands.

I can feel it more than describe it :)
 
Festive Fairy said:
No photos but on the forehand to me is when a horse isn't working from behind so is leaning on your hands.

I can feel it more than describe it :)
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Yes, horses that are on the forehand almost invariably lean on your hands and want the rider to carry them, rather than the other way round. I have had several heavy R&D horses and they have all been in the habit of leaning. I drop my hands, so that they can't lean, which means that they have to carry themselves and is the 1st step to them coming off the forehand. Then I do a lot of hill work, using my seat and legs to encourage them to bring their hind legs under them as they work.
OP, the traditional show stance of the Shire/Clydesdale horse with the hind legs strung out behind the horse and its head up with a hollow back, also illustrates it - the head doesn't have to be held low. In fact another good example is the horse which is allowed to pound along banging its feet down in an unbalanced, too fast, trot with its head in the air.
 
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I'll try...

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On the forehand, although a bit iffy that she is- she's only just 5 here and was recently backed so she was still finding her balance in the school.

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Not on the forehand (although you can see why she sometimes ends up there, as she's young but with an enormous engine and huge paces!)
 
FfionWinnie said:
So if not leaning on your hands, can it still be on the forehand?
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Sadly yes :( It is easier to describe what doesn't happen when the horse is on the forehand (how helpful is that? lol) The Current Appy was on the forehand when we got her, she never leant on my hands, but did an excellent giraffe impression, with a ewe neck. Her back end did virtually nothing to move her on, which was difficult as she was a very foreward going animal. They don't bring the hinds properly underthemselves, but tend to look as if they are trailing them, the back tends to be hollow rather than rounded up under the rider, corners tend to either be cut, or a bit motorbiked. The way we dealt with this with the Appy was a million transitions, one of the best schooling exercises for her was walk five, trot five, walk five, sitting trot five, rising trot five and any combination of that. When they get the idea you can do the same in canter. I still do this with the Appy to get her listening and behavng herself.
Hope that makes some sense and is of some use :)
 
If your horse is on the forehand then i would say his not using his bottom correctly. You want to feel a lightness in your hand and elastic-ness. A horse on the forehand (i think) will be more exhausting when ridding him - once off the forehand it can feel effortless and even a heavier horse can feel like his floating. It all comes from the hindquarters and once they are going you can sit back and use all that power to lift up the front end.

Dependant on breed also - most Warmbloods have sloping shoulders which allow extension and uphill movement so easier to correct if on the forehand. Conformation plays a big part in getting the weight correct and a horse off the forehand.

However some horses are super clever and make people think they're using their bums but really they are not. :)

It's all fun and games.
 
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Think a downhill feeling, not rounding underneath you, lack of balance usually involved ;), usually heavy in the hand, moving forward with no collection. Can you tell my mare is being re-schooled?
 
She feels (for a 4 year old!) effortless to ride but she did when folk on here said she was was very on the forehand so I just don't know! She is built downhill

She is stepping right underneath herself, light in the hand most of the time, with a good rhythm.
 
She looks to be going really nicely here, but ebs is still leaning like a mother xx, :rolleyes: way too much tension in her frame, she will be heavy on the hand... Strain on the wrists and feeling like she is stepping downhill. A good little rider but a horse experienced at evading if you didn't know how to work her.

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The way I explain it is as follows. A horse carrying itself uses the back end to push itself forwards, & because the shoulders are in front of the quarters, they get pushed along with the movement of the back end. But on the forehand, its the front that's doing the moving, & just pulling the quarters along behind.
Other explanation is to think of the horse as a seesaw, on the forehand the weight is tipping the seesaw forwards. However I'm more used to teaching kids & teens so sorry if that sounds a rather childish explanation.
Obvious cases like a front heavy cob leaning on your hands are easy to spot, but its hard to give specific pointers for spotting or feeling less obvious ones. Could you volunteer to spend a day writing for a dressage judge? Not an entire day of intros & prelim, maybe a few hours of prelim & novice, but preferably some elementary too, or even medium. You see it on a smaller, difficult to spot scale there too.
And echo others it doesn't always mean leaning on your hands. Daughters 5yr old never leans & has naturally high head carriage, but in her sillier moments its the front end where her weight goes, even though its not her mouth that leans.
 
This may sound odd, but as you haven't ridden her when she is going in anyother manner, it may be difficult to tell by feel, as you have nothing of her to compare her to. The difference with my girl is amazing, but I didn't realise how good she could be until I'd put a heck of a lot of work into her. I was a bit conned by her :p when I went to try her she 'came up' under me and felt like a filled balloon, although when the girl selling her rode her I could see she was on the forehand. Took a fair bit of work and a friend with a good video camera, along with someone who knew us both, to get us off the forehand. The other problem in recognising it properly with mine is that she is very foreward going and thinking, so can con you that way too :D Lots of hill work (very easy for us, we live on top of the pennines, every where is a hill) and really riding her up to the bridle. Did some passage and lateral work too (although I know you should get them off the forehand first) and it all got her back on her hocks. When they get it you almost get the feeling of the front end not touching the ground. One of the best compliments we got was a friend saying how she floated :)
 
The_angel_littlelegs said:
The way I explain it is as follows. A horse carrying itself uses the back end to push itself forwards, & because the shoulders are in front of the quarters, they get pushed along with the movement of the back end. But on the forehand, its the front that's doing the moving, & just pulling the quarters along behind.
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That's a great way to explain it - I'm going to remember this.
 
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how about videos to compare?
here's a horse that is on the forehand, it just looks heavy, no lightness there, no lift in the front, to me it also looks as if the back is trying to catch up with the front and the front is so heavy it is finding it hard to have a steady pace, so then the downwards transition is also very much a 'boom' and you're in trot, rather than being smooth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3TXznycazw
And here's a horse that is off the forehand, working from behind, and it just looks a lot lighter in the front:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=ZEWqIhBZA44&NR=1

I hope i'm giving good examples here :o this is what i understand it as anyway :)
 
Feebee-Friesian said:
sorry to highjack the thread op, but just wondering if being on the forehand can lead to an uneven gait?
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I think it's all linked and that if your ned is on the forehand then his not using himself correctly therefore all his gaits will be affected but how much I have no idea. But if your ned is unever in his gait I would first think it's balance and muscle related.
 
Good examples Ping pong pony! I wonder if anyone has video of the same horse after improvement to compare, don't think the poor little fjord will ever quite match up to the posh hanoverian, but he can try :-)

I have been learning more about this sort of thing recently, I find ridden I can lose my balance and tip forwards, then horse goes on the forehand and it is sort of like if you are driving a van with heavy stuff loaded at the back, then say you break and it suddenly all slides forward to the front... so you have to try and keep the centre of gravity in the right place and then it is easy, balanced and efficient.

You can see the fjord in the vid is not working very efficiently and the energy is getting lost in the motion, and at times the rider appears to be working harder than she otherwise would just to rise to the trot as the energy of them both is not flowing correctly.
 
Ping pong thanks for the links. Is the dressage mare truly working correctly, to my untrained eye, I didn't think she was tracking up in trot a lot of the time?

Mandwhy a vid of before and after of the same horse would be brill. Especially one that isn't built uphill to begin with!
 
Sorry dont agree with the videos. The mare is behind the verticle and looks forced into an outline - just because something has flashy paces doesn't make it correct. The fjord looked to have a better head position and didn't look to be on the forehand.
 
FfionWinnie said:
Thanks for the pics lolo and the info FestiveG. I think I am getting there now but more pics and info would be good. I am not sure about my mare still.
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In your sig your mare is on the forehand. However, this may be because she is young and still bum high.

On the forehand does not need to feel heavy in the hand. It is when a horse is working down hill. A horse naturally will take 60% of its weight onto its front legs with the hind legs providing impulsion. We try to ride them so that they take more of their weight backwards onto the hind legs and that has the effect of lightening the forehand and freeing up the shoulders. Paces then become bigger and more expressive.

At your horse's stage in training, I would not be at all worried about it. Wait until she is not built downhill before trying to address the problem. So long as she is not heavy in the hand and leaning on you, then no need to worry.
 
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