Before I get into talking about the horse’s topline, I wanted to let you know that we have a course which shows you how you can use groundwork to develop your horse’s topline. This course will be opening again shortly.
To get on the waitlist click here https://courses.artisticdressage.com/topline-makeover-course-wait-list
The Topline
You can tell a lot about the training of a horse by looking at his muscle development, especially the muscles above the spine. Well trained horses have a well developed top line. Poorly trained horses often have a hole in their muscling front of the withers, the thoracic and lumbar spine may stick out, and the points of the hips are pointy. The muscles along the underneck may be hard and lumpy. Their lateral neck muscles may feel stringy and hard, rather than supple. Their hips and shoulders are often difficult to move because the muscles are so contracted that they don’t allow much movement.
So, how do you develop these topline muscles?
What is it in the training that makes them grow? The muscles along the spine grow and develop when the energy of the hind legs is transmitted along the spine, from one vertebra to the next, all the way to the bit, with no blockages and no leaks. This entails that each muscle does only the job it was designed to do, i.e. the postural muscles provide balance and alignment, while the movement muscles produce movement.
If the postural muscles are not doing their job and the movement muscles have to help out so that the horse doesn’t fall down, the horse will feel very stiff and unpleasant to the rider because he is bracing with his legs against the ground, and with his neck and rib cage against the rider. In addition to feeling very unpleasant to ride, the horse will then develop the wrong muscles, while the correct muscles atrophy.
Udo Bürger, who was a veterinarian as well as a rider describes it very well (1959, 173):
“Increasing muscular strength is synonymous with stimulating muscle growth. A muscle grows through exercise only if it is used in its natural function according to its location and interior structure. It decreases in circumference (atrophies), however, if it is forced to work under faulty, cramped tension, that it cannot endure in the long run.”
How can you get the postural muscles to do their job so that the movement muscles are free to do theirs? The prerequisite for all muscles to do the job they were designed to do is that the horse is balanced, straight, supple, and relaxed.
Balance
Being balanced means that the horse is able to support the body mass with any one of his legs or any pair of legs temporarily, depending on the situation, the arena pattern and movement your are riding. This includes the ability to shift the weight from one leg to another, or from one side to the other. If the weight is always supported by the same leg, or by the same side of the body, the horse will only be in balance in some specific situations. But most of the time, he will be out of balance, unless he is able to shift his weight. Losing balance always leads to bracing, especially with the movement muscles and the underneck, because the horse would fall down otherwise. Unbalanced horses either invert or curl up, depending on whether the neck is short or long, thick or thin, and how the poll and throat latch are shaped.
Connecting the Feet
Good balance comes from being able to use the ground as support. This requires the horse to be aware of how many legs he has, where they are, which leg is supporting the majority of the body mass at any given time, etc. These things are not as easy for many horses as we might think. Many horses don’t seem to know that they have hind legs, others don’t know that they have two legs on the concave side of their body. Others may not trust some of their legs to be able to hold them up, which makes them reluctant to shift their weight onto them.
The rider can help the horse to develop this awareness through certain exercises. For instance, touching a leg with a whip and asking the horse to lift it and to move it forward or sideways improves his awareness of this leg. It also improves his balance because he can only lift a leg if he is not using it for support at that moment.
When you ask the horse to lift a leg that is currently supporting the weight, he has to shift his weight to the other side first. Many horses don’t understand this initially and resist the rider’s request. They have to learn it through the lessons. Once they feel that they have one leg at each corner of the body and they understand that they can shift the weight into any one of the four corners, they relax and carry out the request. These simple exercises of picking up one hind leg and moving it forward or sideways are surprisingly difficult for many horses at first. But they lead to much better balance and straightness and consequently also to better use of their musculature.
Another very important group of exercises are those that connect the horse’s feet to the ground and the weight. Stirrup stepping and down transitions into individual legs belong in this group.
As a rider, I often don’t feel that the horse is balanced until I can reach the ground through all four legs. Only when all four legs are connected to the ground and my weight does the horse lift his back and swing. These exercises also improve the horse’s awareness of his feet and teach him to use the ground as a trampoline.
Horses whose feet are well connected to the ground and the weight are more comfortable to sit, more on the aids, and they use their top line better than those whose feet are not well connected.
Functional Straightness
Being functionally straight means being aligned correctly on the line of travel, i.e. the left pair of legs is on the left side of the line, the right pair of legs is on the right side of the line, and the spine forms a segment of the line. In lateral movements both hind legs step under the body mass, and the lateral bend is the same as on a volte. If the horse gets crooked, he won’t be aligned correctly anymore. One front leg or hind leg will move away from its proper track, which upsets the balance. The body mass will fall more onto the front leg that is drifting away from the line of travel. Since crookedness is a form of imbalance, it also leads to bracing and resistance.
Many horses invert and drop their back when they get crooked. As soon as you straighten them, they come on the bit and start using their top line correctly.
Suppleness/Relaxation
Balance and straightness lead to relaxation because all muscles are working in the way they are supposed to. Movement muscles no longer have to help out the postural muscles in preventing the horse from falling over, but can now relax and focus on producing movement. A balanced and straight horse will also feel more secure and more comfortable than an unbalanced and crooked one. So he will be more at ease and psychologically more relaxed.
As the horse becomes straighter and more balanced, he will become more supple. Conversely, suppling his hips, shoulders, and spine will contribute significantly to improving his balance and straightness. It’s a two-way street.
Sometimes, balancing and straightening the horse only gets rid of some stiffness, not all, especially in horses with less than perfect conformation or in horses who had been trained badly. In those cases, we need to search for the remaining muscle blockages and remove them with the help of specific exercises that target the problem areas.
When all muscles are doing their job and working together harmoniously, no muscles will work against each other or interfere with each other. The work, therefore, becomes more energy efficient. The horse has to work less hard and will sweat less, and there is less wear and tear on joints and tendons.
Spine and Legs as Water Hoses
You can imagine the horse’s spine and legs as a system of water hoses or water pipes. These hoses are all connected with each other, and when the horse is balanced, straight, and supple, the energy of the hind legs can flow freely through them from back to front, and the rider’s aids can flow freely from front to back and top to bottom, through the horse’s legs into the ground. This is at least the goal of the training. In real life, the flow of energy is sometimes inhibited by muscle blockages and leaks, and it is the rider’s job to find these blockages and leaks and to remove them.
The horse’s top line is the main hose through which the energy flows. If there is an obstruction somewhere, the flow of energy is interrupted, and the top line muscles are no longer working. In addition to muscle blockages, the “hose” of the spine can be negatively impacted when the horse’s head and neck are raised so high that the back drops.
Due to their size and weight the horse’s neck and head exert a certain leverage on the rest of the body. Raising them adds a downward pressure onto the body behind the withers. Lowering them takes the pressure off. When the back is lifted and the hind legs are strong and flexible enough, the joints of the hind legs will flex and the croup will lower under the downward pressure that is created by a raised neck.
On the other hand, if the back is fragile, if the hind legs are stiff and/or weak, the leverage of the neck and head is not transmitted to the hind legs. Instead, the back drops and the horse pushes his croup up so that the middle of his back becomes the lowest point of this central hose. The water in the hose then gathers in a pool at the lowest point, i.e. the movement impulses of the hind legs can no longer travel to the bit and back, but they get stuck in the horse’s back. The back muscles contract, and the top line deteriorates if this state persists for a long period of time.
The outline of the horse has to match the strength and flexibility of his hindquarters and his back. If they they are weak, a longer, lower frame is healthier for the back and the development of the top line muscles, and as the hindquarters get stronger and more flexible, the elevation can be gradually increased. This will increase their strength and flexibility, if it alternates with a longer and lower frame.
Riding long and low all the time will eventually lead to stiff, braced hind legs whose joints are always more or less extended. Riding with a higher degree of elevation all the time may cause the back to drop and the hind legs to stiffen and brace.
Seat
The seat plays a very important role in the development of the horse’s back and top line under saddle as well. If the seat is rigid or static, it will interfere with the lifting of the horse’s back and with the mobility of his rib cage. Some horses will drop their back if the rider’s hips are immobile, or if she sits with all her weight on her seat bones. Letting the rider’s weight flow around the horse's rib cage so that it is spread out over the insides of her thighs as well, reduces the pressure per square inch on the horse's back. When a rider sits very relaxed, they can feel very heavy on the horse's back, like wet snow on a roof that makes the roof collapse. Engaging the deep core muscles more, creates better self carriage of the rider, which makes her feel lighter to the horse.
The rider can help the horse tremendously by not being static or too passive in her seat, but by emphasizing certain motions of the horse’s back and rib cage from time to time. For instance, if the rider’s pelvis accentuates the upswing of the horse's back or the swinging of the rib cage towards the outside on curved lines allows the horse to move through his back more freely, which often leads to the horse lifting his back more, becoming rounder, and relaxing his poll and jaw.
Conformation
The horse’s conformation influences how easily he can access his top line muscle. Horses with harmonious build and a smooth flowing top line are normally relatively easy to ride on the bit and through the back. Their top line musculature is therefore relatively easy to develop, too.
There are some conformational challenges, however, that can make it very difficult for the horse to lift his back and relax his poll so that the energy can flow through the “hoses” of the spine and legs and the top line muscles develop properly.
Hind legs that are out behind the vertical can’t support the body very well, so that the back tends to sag.
Straight hind legs whose joints are very extended in their neutral position are much better at pushing than at carrying, so that they don’t support the back either.
A pelvis that is rotated backward so that the lumbar spine slopes downward leads to a dropped back as well.
When the hind legs are so long that the top of the croup is higher than the withers, the lumbar spine will tend to sag, rather than lift.
When the transition from the lumbar spine to the pelvis shows a sharp ridge, instead of flowing smoothly, the horse is difficult to connect from back to front and tends to tighten his back.
A long, narrow back tends to be weak and to collapse under the weight of the rider.
A ewe neck tends to over elevate so that the underneck musculature engages and the back drops under the downward pressure of the excessive elevation.
A very high-set neck creates a great amount of downward pressure on the back and hind legs. If the hind legs are not well engaged and flexed under the body, the back will not be supported enough. The high-set neck can quickly turn into a ewe neck if it isn’t supported enough by the hind legs.
A tight throat latch, or a thick, fleshy poll limits the flexibility of the top of the cervical spine, especially in higher elevation. It blocks the flow of energy, which prevents the lifting of the back and the correct use of the top line muscles.
All of these conformational features interfere with the free flow of energy within the horse. They often prevent the rider’s aids from going through and reaching the body part that they are targeting.
When a difficult neck, a weak back, and difficult hindquarters are combined in one horse it can become extremely challenging to ride the horse through the back and to develop the top line musculature.
Conclusion
Developing the horse’s topline is not a trivial matter. It’s not enough to lower the horse’s head. But there are several different factors that have to come together. Balance, straightness, and suppleness play crucial roles. Under saddle, the use of the rider’s seat is a very important element.
The horse’s conformation can make the rider’s job easier or more difficult. Some conformational flaws can be compensated by other strong points. The details of the horse’s conformation and his natural gaits always have to be taken into consideration in his training and in choosing the best balance and the best outline.
p.s. If developing your horse’s topline correctly is a priority for you, you will not want to miss out on our upcoming course called “The Topline Makeover” where we systematically cover the method we use to develop our own horses’ toplines using groundwork such as longeing, double longeing, work-in-hand, and long reining BEFORE or in addition to your ridden work. We cover the complete theoretical framework so you understand the biomechanics involved and how to influence specific body parts in order to develop the musculature correctly. This is the perfect course for young horses, rehab horses, or any horse who could use a little TLC in the topline department. Get on the waitlist to know right away when we open the doors ⬇⬇
