Stiff Horse - any general advice

[denisel]

My son has a weekly lesson and has made excellent progress. They cover jumping and lots of flat work. However one of the things the instructor commented on, was that the pony is stiff and we need to keep working on suppling him up. Has anyone had this with theirs before.

 

[westernriderH]

My horse was stiff on one leg because he hadn't been worked on it as much. Lots of bending exercises (circles, leg yielding) sorted mine out as it made him more suppler and developed his muscles.
How old is the pony, it might be due to age?

 

[cpendle]

Difficult to comment not knowing where the main areas of stiffness are, but some general guidelines...

Work on different shapes within a flat schooling session. For example 20 metres circles, figures of eight, serpentines and 15 metre loops in from the track. Making sure equal work is done on each rein.

Depending on how experienced a rider your son is, he could try and get the pony to stretch down into the rein "long and low" at the beginning and end of a schooling session.

As a precaution, I'd get an equine physio or chiropractor to give the pony the once over as well.

 

[denisel]

Thank you. He is coming up 9 years old.

He is doing the serpentines and figures of 8 etc which you mentioned.

I'll have to ask his instructor actually where she thinks he's stiff. I dont know why but i assume kneck but they i know nothing

He's jumping still brilliantly but like his instructor said - imagine what he could be capable of if he was more supple!!