Understanding Elevation of the Back Course

Learn proper self-carriage and elevate the horse’s back

Understanding Elevation of the Equine Back is just under 2 hours in length broken up into 5 parts that you can watch at your convenience.

The goal behind the creation of this series is to try and simplify what seems to be a complicated concept – Proper Self Carriage and Elevating the horse’s back.

The video starts with the four presenters: Lorre Mueller, Equine Osteopath (EDO); Kelly Jefferson Masterson Method Certified Practitioner, Instructor & Coach, Christine Calao, USDF Gold Medalist, Owner/Head Trainer Cadence Ranch: and Andrea Adkins, USDF Silver Medalist, Assistant Trainer Cadence Ranch introducing themselves and their backgrounds.

Parts 2 – 5 continue with some basic anatomy and muscle function. The horses used in the videos have the muscles chalked on to help give the students a visual while the horses are both ground driven and ridden making it easier to see the muscles function during work. The video demonstrates an inverted horse and its movement, then onto a young horse just being developed in her riding and then a Grand Prix horse all in an attempt to demonstrate what proper and improper self-carriage look like.

The video series was created to get riders, trainers, and bodyworkers thinking about the strong connection between the powerful hind end carrying muscles, the long back muscle, and the connection that the long back muscle makes to the lower neck. It’s our hope to educate everyone no matter what discipline, in simple terms, what it means to elevate the horse’s back correctly.