Amethyst Equine Connections Inc.

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🎆 July Cover Photo Contest – Celebrating Our Half Andalusians/Lusitanos! 🎆

July 1st marks the halfway point of the year, making it the perfect time to celebrate the horses that embody the best of both worlds—our incredible Half Andalusians and Half Lusitanos! 🐴✨
Whether they shine in the show ring, excel on the trail, or simply steal your heart every day, we want to see them!
📸 How to Enter:
Post your favorite photo of your IALHA-registered Half Andalusian or Half Lusitano in the comments below.
👍 How to Win:
Votes will be counted using Likes and Loves on your photo—so be sure to rally your friends, family, and fellow horse enthusiasts!
📅 Important Dates:
• Voting closes: July 7th
• Winning photo featured: July 8th–31st
📣 Pro Tip:
Share this post and encourage others to vote for your photo!
We can't wait to see the beauty, versatility, and personality of your Half Andalusians and Half Lusitanos. Show us your favorites and you could be featured as the next IALHA Facebook Cover Photo! 🐴🌟

💜

What Is Impulsion?

Impulsion is a good topic to talk about because I think a lot of people aren't very clear on what that is or how you get it. It took me a long time until I felt like I had a decent understanding of it. It's a term that gets thrown around — impulsion — and the German word is schwung. But I don't think it's explained very often, or at least not explained well.

The German word schwung is actually a good one because it is a noun that comes from the verb schwingen — to swing. When a horse has good impulsion, there should always be this element of swinging present. I can't think of a good English equivalent that really captures the connotations that the German word schwung has. There are several equestrian technical terms where the German captures something very specific and there is no hundred percent equivalent in English.

A lot of people think impulsion has to do with pushing, or being hot, being speed, maybe going fast, going forward. But that doesn't really hit the target. In order for a horse to have impulsion, they do need a certain amount of energy — a sleepy horse or a lazy horse won't be able to develop impulsion. There has to be a certain amount of pushing power as well. But having a lot of energy and wanting to run doesn't lead to impulsion. That leads to stiffness and running.

Charles de Kunffy always talks about the rodent that's rushing across the attic floor — that was always his favourite expression. That's what you get when the horse is just fast and hot and tight: fast rhythm, horse just rushing with a stiff back and stiff legs and stiff neck. That's not impulsion.

Pushing power by itself is not enough either, because if the horse just pushes, they can also get heavy in the bridle and push themselves onto the forehand, and then they turn into a bit of a wheelbarrow or a speed demon. These are ingredients that are somewhere involved in impulsion, but they don't capture the essence of it. It's like in science when they talk about necessary and sufficient conditions or prerequisites. Energy and pushing power may be necessary ingredients, but they're not sufficient — by themselves they are not going to give you impulsion.

Simply speaking, the horse’s body has four corners. At each corner, there is one leg. Each leg can be felt by a specific aid of the rider. Put differently, each body part of the horse is connected to a specific body part of the rider. Horse and rider feel each other and communicate with each other through these connections. The rider feels his horse’s movements and receives a great deal of information about the horse through them, and the horse in turn feels the rider and receives his instructions through them.

One of the training goals in dressage is that the rider is able to determine precisely where each leg of the horse touches down and how much of the combined weight of horse and rider it has to support. If the rider can do that perfectly, the horse is fully trained. Without this ability, the rider would be unable to steer reliably, to straighten the horse, or to ride lateral movements or flying changes. If there is a problem with one of the dressage movements, it means that the rider cannot influence precisely enough where the horse’s feet are touching down or how the weight is distributed among them. It is therefore useful to study the communicative relationships that exist between the horse’s legs and spine and the rider’s aids, as well as the timing of these aids.

Biomechanical Aspects Of The Aids

The rider’s aids have a psychological dimension as well as a physical dimension. Since horses are creatures of habit, they can be conditioned to almost any stimulus, as long as it is applied consistently. You can teach your horse to perform all kinds of tricks and movement with purely visual or auditory signals. However, the traditional seat, weight, leg, and rein aids of the rider are subject to the laws of physics on top of that. This means that they can accompany and support the natural movements of the horse. For instance, they may enable the horse to lift his back more, to flex one of his hind legs more, to push more from behind, to lift one hind leg up sooner or faster than he would on his own. Or they ask the horse to turn his shoulders, to sidestep behind, or to bend.

These kinds of aids, therefore, have to blend into the natural biomechanics of the horse’s gaits. The laws of physics dictate that for each aid there is a particular window in which its chances of success are highest. If you apply an aid at the wrong time, the horse will be unable to comply with it, even if he wants to. The result would be resistance and bracing against the aid on the horse’s part. For example, if you are asking the horse to lift his hind leg up while it’s supporting the combined body mass of horse and rider, it would not be possible without seriously compromising the horse’s balance. Or if you ask the horse to flex the joints of a hind leg while it is in the process of opening these joints, it would provoke a great deal of resistance and opposition.

All you can do is ask the hind leg to flex a little more when it is already in that phase of the stride during which it flexes and supports the weight. And you can only ask the horse to lift his hind leg faster or higher at a moment when it is no longer supporting the weight but is available for movement. You can change the flight path of a leg only when it’s in the air, and you can connect it to the ground and the weight only when it is on the ground and supporting the body mass.

It is important to learn the aids and their timing. If there is a specific window for each aid within the footfall sequence of the gait, the rider has to be able to feel and know when a leg is on the ground, when it is in the air, and whether it is touching down on the correct line, or somewhere to the right or the left of it. Many riders struggle with this, but it is something that everybody can learn. You can even teach it to yourself if you know what to look for. The good news is that the horse’s body communicates the right moment for each aid automatically to the rider’s body - provided the rider’s seat is balanced, supple, and connected.

Long day here, and not quite done yet… but managed to get in a quick trail ride with Kelly Hall!
PS: Great job walking through the mud and puddles Freeze!!

A great bit of new research in an infographic from Hartpury University. Pole work isn’t just about trotting over poles. Depending how we use them, different effects are seen. Higher poles, wider poles and doing them quickly create more extension (dipping) of the spine. This may not be ideal - go low, go short, go slow!