Today we’ll wrap up this video series on the basics of collection. I hope you’ve all found it helpful in your journey with your horses. In case you missed them, here’s part 1, part 2, and part 3.
I want to talk about a couple things that happen in the video: if you’ve noticed from previous videos and my explanations, I talk a lot about getting the horse to keep their poll above their withers. It could be easy for Cosmo to dump weight on her front end due to her build. Additionally, when lateral flexions aren’t correct, the weight goes to the inside front foot. For example, if the horse is flexing left, incorrectly, the left front foot carries the weight. A collected horse is a balanced horse.
What we know from basic horse anatomy is that a horse carries 60-65% of their body weight on their front end, naturally. In teaching collection we’d like to balance that to 50/50 or 25/25/25/25, at least in my estimation. I want the horse to shift their weight to the back, elevate their shoulders and prepare for the maneuver.
Please feel free to leave your comments or questions below and I’ll do my best to answer them!
