If you strive to attain a strong classical position when you ride, we’re here with exercises to help. Are you able to maintain that much sought-after ear-shoulder-hip-heel position when you ride? If so, congratulations! If not, just keep working on those exercises and be assured that over time they will help you establish better postural alignment.

Many people enjoy setting goals to help give focus and guidance to the year ahead. If we map out our desired goals appropriately, make them realistic and attainable, then initiate them with baby steps, there is a greater likelihood we will achieve success. When we write down our goals we are, in essence, making a commitment and a contract with ourselves.

A hot humid day. One rider. One horse. Both are exercising at a moderate level. Who is more likely to overheat? It might surprise you to learn that your horse gets hotter much faster than you and is more susceptible to the negative effects of heat stress. Prof. Michael Lindinger, an animal and exercise physiologist at the University of Guelph, explains: “It only takes 17 minutes of moderate intensity exercise in hot, humid weather to raise a horse’s temperature to dangerous levels. That’s three to ten times faster than in humans. Horses feel the heat much worse than we do.”

As a rider, it can be tricky to discern exactly how much influence our structural alignment is having on our horse and our riding. The conversation about posture can be a complex and even frustrating one. In part, this is because we innately know that what is happening in our bodies can’t help but influence our horses, given their sensitivity to changes in weight and pressure, and the near impossibility of a rider being posturally “in tune” with their horse at every moment.