How To Ride The Horse’s Neck

Let’s establish one basic truth, each horse has a neck. There was an article or video of Sylvia Loch I was watching the other day where she remarked, “horses would be so much simpler to ride if they didn’t have necks”, which I can’t much argue with.

I always struggled with horse necks, and in return they struggled right back with me. Either I was riding a steel beam of rigidness, or the neck was all wonky and wiggly. Some necks tried to curl up and hide from the bit and any contact, while others pushed out in defiance against any human-imposed postures.

The most challenging neck I ever rode was a Saddlebred gelding, sweet as pie personality but a bit on the high strung side. I attribute it to the fact that he had hooves which resembled this, minus the flared toe and adding on a pair of shoes with WEDGE HEEL PADS.

Let’s just say it was the closest experience I’ll have to riding a giraffe, and I’m not even exaggerating. It was long, upright, thin and snaky as all get out. And there was something about his messed up lame on all fours-turned pacey walk/trot.

Most of the tough board-straight necks I’ve ridden came around quickly once I sorted out any body issues, teeth, saddle, muscle soreness, feet and got my hands behaving like they ought to (vs. practicing for gator-wrestling).

Now I am a recovering neck rider. I work very hard to avoid riding any necks and instead I focus on what really matters in life (and horses!).

Breaking The Cycle

My present opinion is that any problems in the neck can’t be corrected by addressing the neck. Barring any ailments that are causing pain (hoof pain, teeth, bit/saddle/rider fit, body/muscle pain) the rest lies in two problem areas.

1. The rider’s hands,
2. The horse going forward properly.

Most of us do too much with our hands. Come on now, I’m admitting it myself which means you can too, remember we’re in neck-rider’s anonymous (NRA) now so let’s start by getting honest with one another (and ourselves!). All day, every day we fiddle with our hands. If our body was technology our hands would be Facebook – constantly abuzz, loosely organized but even when everything is running just fine we have to go in and start moving shit around just to confuse things (and piss people off).

In the case of riding it’s the horse who gets pissed off with our fiddling. And all those little movements we don’t even realize we’re doing with our hands are annoying as hell. Let’s not even mention all the movement that happens if our seat isn’t right and we’re also bouncing around, randomly making contact with the horse’s mouth or hanging on for dear life depending on the reins for balance.

Talk about a monkey on someone’s back!

This one looks to have his balance in check..

Our hand bone’s connected to our seat bones so get it together, find an instructor in your area to give you some seat lessons. I work on my seat every time I ride and do work without stirrups regularly too to find where I might be having any bad habits forming. Your horse will thank you, repeatedly.

Now, what to do about busy hands? Think about your upper arms dropping straight down along your torso, elbow falling directly beneath your shoulder. Now, let the fleshy part of your forearm lightly touch the uppermost bony-protrusion of your hips. Your bony-protrusion may not be so protruding, but feel around for it and aim for that area. Your hands should naturally follow around to be in front of your body, almost as if they would settle in your lap if you were sitting in a chair.

When you’re riding avoid moving them too far out of this area. I don’t mean ride rigidly, but avoid big gawking movements with your hands.

It’s a bit like yelling at kids. If they didn’t listen when you told them in a normal voice, even if they do what you tell them to when you are screaming at them you have to ask yourself if you’re doing it right.

Don’t Slow Down!

Okay, maybe not the best headline.

The second point is about going forward, which is also connected to busy hands. When your hands are all funky and poking the horse in its face you’re likely to find two problems – either the horse slows down or he’s rushing forward. Both scenarios lack a horse who is forward.

Forward doesn’t mean FAST.

To have the horse forward means to have influence over his energy and be able to communicate how much or how little you want at any given time. That’s my definition, which deviates slightly from the idea that it is merely an outpouring of energy (more more more syndrome).

Most horses, even high level competition Dressage horses (ooh! fancy) lack forward. In part because their riders are fiddling too much in the mouth (and neck riding!) which will interfere with the horse’s energy.

Learning to gain the horse’s energy (forward!) you do have to get the horse moving at first, and quickly. You want to develop tracking on the lunge and continue it under saddle. It’s all a form of conditioning for the horse’s body and mind. You’re building his strength, flexibility, balance, attention and communication. Over time the forward takes shape into something more useful as you begin lateral movements and collected work. The energy is now needed to lift the horse vs. driving him ahead. He still needs that same energy that first saw him moving forward swiftly with his rider, but it appears “lessened” only because the ground covered is less, but the suspension and flexion of the limbs is increased (which takes energy!).

So, get out of the horse’s mouth by muting and gaining more refined control over the rein aids, and secondly influencing the horse’s energy will help to balance the wonky neck issues and the (light as a feather) stiff as a board horse.

Test It Out

Try riding with both reins in your non-dominant hand, focus on moving the horse forward, looking where you want to go. Practice some basic arena patterns and gait transitions. Did you notice a significant difference?