This is the "ideal" first step for me. Note this is a weanling, yet I've got him held still and his neck upright. AFter he has this down, then I will ask for him to extend the upper portion of his neck outward. Note in the pic you can see my hand at his muzzle encouraging him to stay in place.
As a long yearling, and even though he knows what to do, we snapped a pic of him "rubbernecking" or just all out stretching his neck, no real poise to it. This is the inevitable result of just asking for them to reach for a treat w/out the training to back up the other portions of a halter pose.
Experienced horses will often do this anyway at times, and it's very frequent in young horses as they just don't know what you're asking for, and if you don't know how to ask, then it's a real problem all the way around and can be quite frustrating.
Here is a horse w/their neck in a relaxed, but still nice position. I would, in many cases, just let a horse relax and stand in this position if they didn't "get" the rest of it. This mare has a nice neckset to begin with, even if it's a bit thick and shortish.
Now what this pose does not do for this mare is neglects to show her throatlatch. Even though it's not the nicest, hookiest throatlatch, she has more than this suggests, but this pose is more flattering to this mare than a full out rubberneck stretch...though I could be wrong and sometimes that is what I got out of her in the ring!
Here you can see her extending her neck some, though with the extra thickness it doesn't look quite as pretty. If I were to "perfect" this picture, I would tuck her nose just a bit to take the "fold" out of her crest.
She is stretching similarly to the horse above, but her head isn't following quite the same angle. Either way, it's not the prettiest picture/presentation of either horse, IMHO.
This mare tends to be fat slightly so this is what I get for photoing a pasture condition broodmare...
A nice halter pose. If he had started out a bit more upright, it would have been even nicer, but one can see his neck in this photo (if it weren't for the ribbons but I couldn't find another w/better illustration of the head position). He could be using his neck more, but overall, this works and looks much nicer than the rubberneck of his yearling year pic (the second photo above).
A pic of him just standing fairly relaxed so you can see that this horse has really what I consider an almost ideal neckset. It comes up out of his shoulders at a great angle rather than tying in super low. He naturally stands quite upright and has a nice length of neck and a good, clean throatlatch. I do not sweat this horse though I have at times done so. I am just lucky he has such a pretty neck though we've worked on keeping him in place and using his neck to his advantage rather than just stretching it out.
I hope these help some.
Liz