Balance and collection


Make a statue
Whilst you are riding, or watching someone ride, imagine if a photo taken at any moment was made into a statue. Would the statue be perfectly balanced or would it fall over? Which way? Ideally the horse’s weight should be more on the hind end but still balanced, so his centre of gravity is not in the middle, but the statue would still not fall over.

Uphill horses
Horses don’t come on the bit just by bending their neck – they need to tuck their hindlegs underneath them and lower their rump. This Horses enables the horse to carry out the unatural task of carrying a rider with the most ease and efficiency and protects his vunerable back. Horses are said to be uphill when a straight line drawn along the horses back would he be higher at the front than the back. As the horse progresses in his training this should become more pronouced. The horses featured on this page increase in age and training going down the page.



What is the Centre of Gravity?
For every object, human, or horse there is a point at which physicists can model the weight as acting from. When we talk about a horse that "carries its weight with its hindlegs" we mean that this point is nearer the back. If a horse is "on the forehand" it’s too near the front. People are much better at spotting this than they think.



Being on the movement
One of the important ways to "stay out of the way" is to keep your weight or centre of gravity directly above his - this is what you are trying to achieve when you stay "on the movement". Your horse will generally attempt to stay under your centre of gravity - whether you meant it or not! An awful lot of back poles come down when riders come up too quickly over a jump, but that's a story for another page...