ANSWER:
I'm glad that you find our website useful (have you seen this month's update?) and that you enjoy the CDJ. It sounds like your horse is quite a project. Judging by the description of the ewe neck and locked poll, I think it would be a good idea to have a chiropractor look at the horse, because most likely there will be subluxations in the poll, the neck, the hips, and possibly elsewhere in the body. Carrot stretches and flexions will definitely be helpful, too. Flexions are a very old training tool that occupies a grey area between training and physical therapy. They help to stretch out stiff neck and
poll muscles. They help the saliva gland to find a place on the outside or inside of the jowl, so that the rim of the jowl can connect to the neck muscles without pinching the saliva glands. Don't be surprised if your horse shows considerable resistance against the flexions. Just go slowly, as you would in yoga, and flex the poll, vertebra by vertebra, as far as
the horse allows you. When you run into a resistance, return to a straight head and neck and start over. The repetitions will gradually soften and stretch the contracted muscles.
Once the poll is loosened up more, you will find an increase in impulsion and back movement. I would also teach the horse full passes and turns on the forehand in motion to supple the hips, the shoulders, and the belly muscles. If this is too difficult under saddle, you can do it in hand. Once the hips have become more flexible laterally, you will find that the
neck and poll relax even further. Correct longeing with properly adjusted side reins will also be important, in order to help the horse find his balance in a consistent rhythm, tempo, stride length, and energy level on a round circle. This can be more
challenging for a retraining horse than it sounds. I personally would not sit on a horse, until he has found his balance without the rider's weight on the longe line, because if he can't balance himself without the additional weight, things can only get worse if you add the weight of the rider.
Often a combination of warming up at the longe line, then unmounted flexions at the halt, perhaps a few full passes and turns on the forehand in motion in hand, and finally some mounted work can complement each other very well and help to explain to the horse what we are expecting of him, and to give him the necessary suppleness and flexibility of his musculature to execute our requests.
Good luck. Let me know how things progress.
- Thomas Ritter
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Last Update: January 13, 2007