Ewe neck

[rache]

Maybe a question for heather, sue etc.

Well i am hopeing to take on a 16h2 irish sport horse soon but 1 thing i have seen that she has a ewe neck, how could i not have an ewe neck, is there certain exercises to do to improve this as i was told but have totally forgotten.

Any bodies help appreciated

Thanks Guys

[rache]

Is that no one then!?

[ros]

Oh well, you'll have to settle for me then :rolleyes:

Do you think the mare's ewe neck is down to conformation, or is it that she's got a problem of some description and the underside of her neck is overdeveloped? (That's very common.)

If it's not conformation, you need to look first at what's caused her neck to develop like that. Saddle fit is often the culprit; also bad riding or overbitting, or neglected teeth - basically anything that's made her want to trail along with her nose in the air!

If you've watched her current owner/rider on her you may well have picked up on something already - are they particularly heavy-handed, for example? Does the saddle look as though it's pinching, or are there any white hairs or rub marks on the horse under where the saddle sits? Look for clues if you can.

The good news is that you can often reverse an upside-down neck with proper treatment and schooling - Heather's Lucia was a case in point (remind us where the photos are, someone!) - but it doesn't happen overnight, of course.

[galadriel]

Give it longer than 40 minutes :) We're not all online at once, you know, and we're in a lot of different time zones, too!

Building a horse's topline as you would normally can help with a ewe neck. You'll never overcome it if it's a conformation fault, but you can usually work around it (none of use are structurally perfect either ;) ).

A horse can look like it has a ewe neck just because it has too much muscle on the underside of the neck, developed in resistence to the bit. In addition to properly working the horse through his back in order to develop a topline, with such a horse you have to overcome a habit of fighting the bit and moving improperly.

[rache]

thanks for replying you two!!!

The owner seemed a bit off balance with her horse and also i think she has an upside down neck more muscle on the bottom, she doesnt easily go on the bit very much and tends to put her head high not as bad as eat ** ears tho!! She has a martingale but i am not really into martngales as they learn to lean against them and they dont help much when ever i have seen them.

What sort of exercises could i do to correct it.

She has good conformation apart from that!!