When playing with a horse, many people say shoulder or hindquarters when trying to explain something. Horses have five parts to their bodies refered as zones. Theses zones give a better definition of were to be when playing with your horse and it also can give one a better sense of what the horse is doing with its body.
Zone 1: from the nose band of the halter stretching out for a mile and a half in front of the horse. It physically involves his muzzle and his personal space in front of him.
The Delicate Zone: around the eye area, the zone from the nose band up over the ears to the head piece of the halter. It's a delicate area and needs to be treated with care.
Zone 2: from right behind the ears to the break of the withers, the little dip right in front of them. Essentially it's the neck and chest and the end of the zone makes a diagonal line to the point of the shoulder.
Zone 3: from the break of the withers to the point of the hip.
Zone 4: from the point of the hip to the top of the tail.
Zone 5: from the tail head stretching out a mile and a half behind him."
It might make it easier in some cases to use the zones to pinpoint where problems are (touchy or non responsive areas) or to describe the areas that we need to stimulate to ask the horse to move.
2 comments:
Can you explain which zones you should be working in when training and exercising a horse?
You should always be working with every zone each time your with him. The tricky part is how to get more movement from the horse with less pressure from you, and how fast the horse can respond to your asking of him.
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