How to Warm Your Horse Up Before You Ride
Like 2 Dislike 0 Published on 6 Nov 2015
Looking for some good exercises to use to warm up your horse? This week, I share 2 great exercises to use to warm up your horse on the ground. The first exercise is sideways and driving on the rail. This is a good exercise for getting your horse soft and supple. If you feel it's too advanced for you and your horse, then just do the sideways on the rail. If want to make it more challenging, then try sideways at a trot or canter on the rail instead. Then the second exercise is circles. Instead of just mindless asking your horse to circle, have a plan of how many circles at what speed. One good sequence is 2 circles at a walk, 2 circles at a trot, 2 at a canter, 2 at a trot, and 2 at a walk. This requires your horse to make upward and downward transitions. Horses who are more extroverted may have more trouble doing the downward transition or might get riled up when going fast. If this is the case for you, allow your horse to make the mistake of missing the downward transition and either speed your horse back up for 2 laps or (if you horse is super riled, spook, etc.) disengage the hind quarters. If you are on the other end of the things and your horse as trouble with upward transitions, remember be assertive when asking and then to reward the slightly try (which may mean you won't get to do 2 laps at a canter and that's ok). I found this to be a super helpful exercise for me especially right after I started Dandy under saddle. He was a very impulsion horse so having to speed up and then go slow was a good test to see if he was ridable. In the end, you are looking to just do enough to get your horse calm, connected, and responsive on the ground so that you can safely ride your horse!
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