The goal of changing a horse’s postural habits to help him move better often derails in the first few minutes of a ride. Why? In the horse’s body, different muscles serve different purposes, and often dressage riders fail to activate the right muscles. Furthermore, activating the wrong muscles can cause other problems, like stiffness or limited flexion of joints, which are also counterproductive to the goals of dressage. During training sessions, many riders activate the horse’s “gymnastic” muscles—or large, exterior muscles that are suited for locomotion. These muscles are responsible for making sure that the horse covers ground to move from one place to another, but they are not effective at communicating with the nervous system to establish new muscle patterns, or muscle memory. Overdeveloping a horse’s gymnastic strength can…
