Carrot Stretches!

When a horse is challenged to stretch his spine, it opens up the spinous processes and reduces the risk of impingement, and builds the small multifidus muscles that control and stabilize the spine, but often become wasted or uneven as they are not easily activated. 

It’s common when doing these exercises that a horse find one side easier than another, and that’s OK, that’s partly why we’re doing them. Better to stay within the range of motion the horse can achieve correctly, then push him too far and encourage him to cheat by stepping or tilting his head. Keep an eye that his ears stay level, and accept that his flexibility, strength, balance and symmetry will improve with repetition. It is not worth forcing a horse into a position using manual pressure, as the horse needs to use his own muscles in order to strengthen them, and you risk pushing the horse beyond his current comfortable level of movement if you force it yourself. As with yoga, each stretch should be slow and relaxed, and aim to hold the end position once it’s achieved for a few seconds.

Using a carrot stick or other favorite bait, the horse can be asked to follow the carrot and do the following stretches. 

Firstly, start with the stretches which stimulate flexion of the neck muscles, work on his rounding and abdominal muscles and extend the spine, opening up the processes.  

Using the carrot he should be tempted to:

1) bring his chin to his chest,

2) bring his chin down to and/or between his knees and

3) bring his chin down to and/or between his fetlocks.

Start by aiming just to ask the horse to reach towards these positions, and then with a bit of practice, you’ll be able to go further into the stretch, for example moving his chin between and beyond his knees rather than just towards his knees. If necessary having a helper put a hand on the noseband will encourage the horse to keep his head straight, but remember to tempt him rather than pull him into position.  

The second type of stretch are the lateral bending exercises. These show up asymmetry and further challenges the spine stabilizing muscles and the horse’s rounding and bending muscles. These can be tested by asking him, by following you with his nose, to one side and then the other, from the front to reaching backwards and downwards to:

4) bring his chin to his girth,

5) bring his chin to his flank and

6) bring his chin towards his hind fetlock.

It may be helpful to stand next to the horse and ask him to reach around you to encourage an even bend through the neck and spine. These exercises can be very revealing as without the added complications of a rider, and with the motivation of a carrot or other treat, it is much easier to see if there is a marked difference between the left side and the right. If you have a helper it can be useful to have them stand at a safe distance behind the horse, ideally on a stool, to see if the horse bends evenly through his body to both directions. If you’re not sure if there’s a difference then they’re probably isn’t, but it helps to take a photo of each direction to help compare them. Occasionally, you’ll see a horse who tries to keep his body straight and just use his neck on one side, but is happy to bend his entire spine in the other direction. This is the type of sign of injury or soreness from saddle fitting or ridden work that may need further investigation and is worth highlighting to your vet in the first instance. Every horse will however prefer one side to the other, particularly if he’s not been challenged to build these muscles before. An uneven ability to each side but with similar technique is not necessarily any cause for concern and should improve with practice as these exercises will greatly increase his range of motion. The horse may initially attempt to “cheat” by stepping around to face the carrot that he’s reaching for. It is not worth over-correcting this, after all it’s a fairly efficient solution to the problem of needing to stretch and wanting to reach the carrot. Just patiently put him back into position and start again, using a wall or second person to help hold his hind end still. Once he realizes which behavior wins the carrot, he’ll be more compliant in future and eventually you’ll be able to work in the field, and won’t need to keep lining him up with the wall.

There are entire books on carrot stretch technique, and they give you an insight into the most accurate targeted activation of specific muscles, but be encouraged that if your horse is moving under his own muscle power whatever you’re doing you will not be hurting him. Even if your technique is different from the next person’s, or doesn’t target the muscles you had in mind exactly as accurately as it could, your horse is still benefiting from doing a stretch.

Source: Sian Townson