Horse Fighting against Angry Bull in Spain

You can see the logic of this when you think about the position of your horse's head and neck when he is relaxed versus when he is ready to flee.

When a horse is alarmed, his head flies up and his neck becomes more vertical. A relaxed horse keeps his head lower, and his neck is more horizontal. Makes sense, right?

Now think about the "hinge point" of the neck. The hinge point on the horse's spine, in layman's terms, is where his neck joins the rest of his body. In more specific terms, this hinge point is the seventh cervical vertebra, or the last vertebrae in the horse's neck. This unique vertebra is shaped like a bear claw. Depending on this position of this vertebra, your horse will either be relaxed or ready to fight or flee. This knowledge can be very useful when it comes to horse training.

Using the Seventh Cervical Vertebra in Horse Training

So your horse changes the position of this crucial vertebra when he is alarmed by throwing his head up. By doing so, he flips over into his sympathetic nervous system, the one wild horses use to get going when faced with predators. When your horse relaxes again, he changes the position that vertebra again, and flips back into the parasympathetic nervous system, which is associated with rest, relaxation, healing, and rejuvenation.

Many people already use this in their horse training program by teaching their horses to put their heads down on command. That is because they know that by changing the position of this vertebra, they can deliberately cause a horse to relax and to operate from the parasympathetic nervous system.

In fact, one reining trainer I know trains all of his horses to become "dirtologists." That is, he teaches his horses to put their nose all the way down to the ground, in the dirt, on command. He then asks all of horses to do this while standing on the "X" in the center of the round, before the reining round begins. His horses are among the most relaxed reiners in any given competition. It works.

Making Sure You Have the Right Hinge Point

In most horse training programs, there is an emphasis on the placement of the horse's head, either because the discipline calls for the horse to be "on the bit" or because the trainer truly understands the role of the seventh cervical vertebra.

Now here's where it gets really interesting. Often times you will see a horse "on the bit" and think that you've got that seventh vertebra in the relaxed position. However, if the horse is breaking at the poll, meaning his nose is pointing down but his neck is still mostly vertical, then the seventh vertebra can still be in the "fight or flight" position. The poll has become the hinge point instead of the last cervical vertebra.

It really doesn't matter where the horse's head is. What IS important is where the horse's hinge point is. Some others will break over further down the neck, say halfway or three-quarters of the way down the neck. However, the horse's neck is still vertical from the base of the neck, where the seventh vertebra is, to wherever his neck breaks over. Again, like the horse who breaks at the poll, the last cervical vertebra is still not in the relaxed position.



Horse Fighting against Angry Bull in Spain by pkvideohub