19/08/2025
💪💪MUSCLE DEVELOPMENT AND TOPLINE💪💪
With Spring tapping on the door, we are all thinking about getting out there and riding a little more. Getting ourselves and our trusty steads ready for the new season ahead in your chosen discipline. If your horse, like mine has had the winter off, then starting to ride again and in Spring can be a little daunting.
Every horse owner wants to have a horse with good muscle development and a decent top line. A calm and willing nature is also up there in the priorities. The factors affecting your horses topline are:
1️⃣Nutrition
2️⃣Exercise
3️⃣Body work
4️⃣Equipment used (tack, covers, training aids etc)
For the horse, having a decent topline allows a strong back to help keep balance, for ultimate performance and the ability to carry a rider. The topline of the horse consists of the muscles that run over the top of the horse's back from the neck, wither and spine to croup (see attached diagrams).
To help your horse gain muscle and create a topline requires effort from your part.
🔹🔹Nutritionally:
✅Feed enough energy for the type of work your horse IS performing – not WHAT it will be doing in a months time. Feeding deficient amounts of energy may cause your horse to use its stored energy in its muscles, this in turn decreases the muscle development and they will start to lose the topline.
✅Feed quality protein. Amino acids are the building blocks that create proteins and there are 10 amino acids that are essential (the horse’s body cannot make them or cannot make them in enough quantity). The top two of these amino acids being Lysine and Methionine are classed as LIMITED ESSENTIAL AMINO ACIDS. This means that they are required in certain quantities for all the other amino acids to build proteins.
✅Feed a balanced and appropriate diet that will enable your horse to be healthy, calm and effectively perform at the level you require. Muscle health and development requires the correct quantities magnesium, calcium and vitamins A, B6 and E.
🔹🔹Exercise:
✅Perform exercises that engage and strengthen the hind quarters and thoracic sling. Allowing the horse hind legs to come up and under themselves and the horse to have a balance way of movement.
➡️Transitions
➡️Hill work
➡️Poles and cavalettis - 2 simple layouts:
🐴4 poles in a straight line - ride at a walk and trot . Once established, can increase the exercise by raising each alternate end of the poles. Horses have no suspension at a walk, so walking over poles is a great way for them to lift each leg the same height. Strengthens the hind end and core and helps to mobilise the pelvis and hocks.
🐴3 poles in a fan - ride at a walk, trot and canter. Once established, can increase the exercise by raising one end of the poles. Ride a 20m circle utilising the fan as part of the circle. Allows your horse to push from behind and activates the core and thoracic sling to lift and engage.
🔹🔹Bodywork: Relaxing and resetting the tired and tight muscles of a working horse is essential in keeping the whole body working correctly. The horse can so easily compensate to varying degrees and sometimes you can be unaware of the compensation. By performing bodywork you can allow the horse to reset any muscles that weren’t working or not working correctly to help them to perform better and become stronger and more balanced. EMMETT4 HORSES is a gentle muscle release therapy which any horse in work would benefit from.
🔹🔹Equipment used (tack, covers, training aids etc): Ensuring the correct fit and usage of equipment is essential in helping to build correct muscles and development of the topline. By getting our saddle professionally fitted and ensuring your bridle and bit are a correct fit and appropriate is essential.
I am available for:
💢Nutritional consultation for your horse to ensure that they are being fed a balanced and appropriate diet.
💢Pole lessons to help you and your horse utilise their entire body, developing correct muscles and become more balanced.
💢Emmett4Horses body work to keep your horse in tip top shape.
