16/02/2026
Yeah. I really got hit with this when Canadian Eventer Kyle Carter spoke about it as he was noticing how much he relied on his equine bodyworkers to "fix" the problem he wasn't addressing in his day-to-day work. It hit a nerve for me and is really helping all of us at the PGHB. Cow horses and eventers alike! Thank you for sharing, Leslie!
In his book The One Thing, Gary Keller poses a question that has stayed with me for years: What’s the ONE thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary? I find myself returning to that question often in my work with horses. When we strip away trends, gadgets, and discipline-specific goals, what is the foundational quality that organizes everything else?
For me, the answer has increasingly become straightness.
Every horse is naturally crooked. I don’t say that critically—it’s simply biology. One hind limb tends to assume a greater weight-bearing role, while the opposite hind contributes more to propulsion. The shoulders rarely align perfectly in front of the haunches. The ribcage tends to drift. At lower intensities, these asymmetries can feel manageable, even subtle. But crookedness is not just a visual trait; it is a pattern of force distribution. And as the demands we place on the horse increase, so do the consequences of that pattern.
Straightness, biomechanically defined, is the symmetrical organization of force. In a straight horse, the hind feet track into the forefeet, the spine aligns with the line of travel, and propulsion generated in the hip, stifle, and hock travels forward through the sacroiliac joint and lumbosacral junction into a balanced thoracic sling. Each diagonal pair shares cyclical loading. The trunk oscillates evenly. The center of mass stays organized between the limbs.
Crookedness changes the direction of force.
When one hind limb dominates, its propulsive effort is not directed purely forward but slightly medially or laterally. Any force vector can be divided into components. Ideally, most of that vector contributes to forward motion. In a crooked horse, part of it becomes lateral—wasted energy that creates torque around the spine.
Torque (τ = rF) increases as either force (F) increases or as the distance from the axis of rotation (r) increases. As we ask for more impulsion, more collection, or more speed, ground reaction forces rise. Kinetic energy scales with the square of velocity (KE = ½mv²). Doubling speed quadruples energy. So as intensity increases, asymmetry is magnified—not linearly, but exponentially.
At moderate workloads, crookedness may show up as uneven contact, difficulty bending one direction, or unilateral muscle development. But as forces rise, the mechanical consequences escalate:
Uneven compression of articular cartilage
Asymmetric strain on suspensory ligaments and tendons
Repetitive shear forces in fetlock and coffin joints
Chronic torsional stress through the sacroiliac region
Bone remodels along lines of stress. Tendons adapt to consistent strain. But they adapt to how they are loaded. When loading is asymmetrical, adaptation becomes asymmetrical. Over time, microdamage accumulates.
Nowhere is this more unforgiving than in the Thoroughbred racehorse.
At racing speed—15–18 meters per second (34–40 mph)—ground reaction forces during gallop can exceed 2–2.5 times body weight per limb per stride. In a 500 kg horse, that is over 1,000 kg of force transmitted through a single limb in under 120 milliseconds of stance phase. There is no time for correction mid-stride. Whatever alignment exists at push-off is amplified by momentum (p = mv) and must be redirected every stride.
If propulsion from behind is misaligned, the forward component of the force vector decreases while the lateral component increases. The horse recruits additional stabilizing musculature—longissimus dorsi, obliques, thoracic sling—to counter-rotate and prevent drift. Metabolic cost rises. Stride efficiency falls. Energy that could extend stride length instead stabilizes imbalance.
On straightaways, this may look like lugging in or bearing out. Internally, it is rotational torque. One forelimb—often opposite the dominant hind—absorbs greater compressive and shear forces. Repetitive asymmetric loading increases risk of suspensory injury, condylar stress fractures, and distal limb pathology.
On turns, centripetal force (Fc = mv²/r) increases with the square of velocity. If the horse already carries uneven weight behind, entering a bend compounds the imbalance. The inside limbs experience greater compressive and shear stress while simultaneously managing rotational torque from crooked propulsion. The structures most vulnerable are the ones already overloaded.
The faster the horse travels, the more the square-law relationship between velocity and force punishes asymmetry.
So when I come back to Keller’s question—What’s the ONE thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?—I keep landing in the same place. Straighten the horse. Align the force. Organize the body before asking for more.
How I systematically pursue that straightness—how I address neuromuscular dominance rather than simply managing symptoms—is something I’ll share in my next post. Because the method matters.
**Notice the compensatory posture assumed by the not-so-straight horse below...that right front doing much more than it's fair share to keep the horse traveling forward. It's my husband in the irons for another trainer, barely keeping it between the ditches!
