The Guide to

Being Balanced on your Pony

Sitting on your pony properly is all about making you look good, right?

Wrong!!! Sitting on your pony properly is all about making it as easy as

possible for him to carry you, and making sure he is as comfortable as

possible.

And guess what? You’ll look great at the same time!

Before we get started, we need to make sure that we understand one

important word - balance. What is balance and what do we mean when

we say a rider is balanced?

Naomi, who helps at the Shy Lowen rescue centre and the lovely pony

Camilla, who lives there will then show you how to sit properly so that

you are balanced.

Balanced is when you've got the same weight on both sides of a point in

the middle, like this

The carrots on each side the same so the plank on top of the triangle

is unbalanced and stays straight. If you had a tomato under the plank,

neither would get squashed. What happens, though, when there are

more carrots on one side than the other?

The plank is now unbalanced and the heavier carrots push one side

down. The tomato under the heavier side gets squashed!

Imagine that you have a backpack to take to school every day. If it is

balanced like the one on the left, it will be easy to carry, but what it if

is all lumpy and unbalanced like the one on the right? That would be

much less comfortable, wouldn’t it?That is what is like for our ponies

when they carry us.

Shoulder, hip, heel

When you sit on your pony, you should be able to draw a pretend line

from your shoulder, through your hip, and down to your heel. Your

weight will then be balanced, not tipping either forwards or backwards.

Another way to see if you are balanced to ask yourself if you would fall

over if you took your pony away.

Naomi wouldn’t fall backwards or forwards, she is balanced.

Let’s have a look at some way you can be unbalanced:

Tipping forwards Slouching backwards

Feet forwards

You can see that you cannot draw a line from Naomi’s shoulder to her

hip and heel, and if we took Camilla away Naomi would fall over. In the

first picture she would fall forwards and in the other two she would

fall backwards.

How does that feel for Camilla?

If Naomi’s body is leaning forwards, it will be like the heavier carrots

on the seesaw. Instead of squashing a tomato, it will make the saddle

squash her shoulders. If Naomi is leaning back, the cantle of the

saddle will dig into Camilla’s back.

That will be uncomfortable for her, just like it would uncomfortable if

you had to carry that lumpy backpack to school. She might get a sore

back and you may find she could not work so well. She may even start

to try and tell us she’s unhappy by napping or bucking.

As well as being balanced front to back, we also have to be balanced

side to side. We should be able to imagine a line from our head, down

the middle of our back, and through the tail of our pony.

You can see in this photo that Naomi’s back isn’t quite in the middle of

the line, because Camilla isn’t standing square. Her head is in line with

Camilla’s tail, though.

Here is Naomi sitting unbalanced to show you

Uneven stirrups Wonky saddle

If you have one stirrup longer than the other, you will lean to the side.

You can see in the first picture that Naomi’s head and shoulders are to

one side of the red line.

It is even more uncomfortable for Camilla if her saddle isn’t straight –

you can see how Naomi’s weight is all to the side if her saddle is wonky.

That will also make the hard parts of the saddle dig into Camilla is it

won’t be following the shape of her back any more.

Thank you to Naomi and Camilla. Naomi is a lovely balanced rider and

has only sat badly for us to show you. You can see how happy Camilla is

with Naomi sitting on her so well.