How much do you know about your horses muscular skeletal system?
It’s one thing to look at diagrams, but this illustration shows you in living color how your horse is put together. Understanding the underlying structure of your horse and seeing how the muscles work (especially when the horse is in motion) provides much greater understanding of motion, and the areas of strength and weakness.
What I find particularly interesting about the horse below is how clearly you can see where his back is the strongest — if the saddle extends beyond the last rib, it will but the rider’s weight on the loins, which is one of the weakest areas.
These walking textbooks are mostly used to help teach classes in equine massage. But we can all learn from them.
I love those painted horses. We studied them in massage school. I always wanted to rub on them but it would mess up the paint, which is kind of chalky.
You pointed out the problem I have with many western saddles. 🙁