In case you hadn’t noticed, it was winter time… and winter means for us in the north of France that we have to ride in the inside arena. And oftentimes the inside arena means that we can’t jump. What’s the solution then? Gridwork exercises of course! I’ll give you four examples that will change your world.
You can’t ride without your horses ending up completely dehydrated? Or maybe you want to do some physical preparation before a show? In any case, you want to improve your horse’s fitness / enhance its lung capacity / work on its heart rate? Let me give you the ONLY way to success.
“Wow you have an awesome six-pack! How did you get it? Do you work out?” “Uh, no…I just ride.” “No way, that’s crazy! I ride every day and I’m not nearly as fit.” “Well, you just need the right exercises!” We talk a lot about building your horse’s strength on this blog, but not enough about the rider. Let’s change the subject for a minute to talk about torture exercises and tips to make us, the lazy riders, work a…
“Swimsuit? ✅ Towel? ✅ Umbrella? ✅ Water bucket? ✅ Horse? ✅ Electrolytes? ✅ Alright, that’s everything. Silver and I are ready for summer!” Summer is just around the corner, or almost… But did you know that your horse can also sweat and dehydrate in winter? So now’s the perfect time to go over perspiration, thermoregulation, and dehydration in horses. We’ll also look at electrolytes, which everybody talks about without really knowing what they are.
“Yikes! That course is brutal. The course designer really cut loose today. He must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed and decided to take it out on us. This is going to be a disaster.” Have you ever looked a course and thought about saying your final goodbyes to your family and friends? I sure have! It’s all the course designer’s fault. Today, we going to look at the method behind the madness when it comes…
“Go forward,” “faster,” “lengthen,” “slower tempo.” Has your trainer yelled any of that at you as you’re completing a pattern? Mine sure has. The problem is that these words are often hard for riders to understand. I’ll just come out and say it…horse vocabulary is about as clear as mud! In future articles, we’ll try to include a Horse Talk/English glossary. For now, let’s start with the basics—tempo, speed, and stride length.
Between the riders who think sitting trot is the worst form of punishment, those who desperately try to hang on to their saddles with their knees while beating the world record for holding their breath, and those who try to hide the fact they can only sit the trot when barely moving forward by pointing out that at least their horse is collected, this dang sitting trot thing can be a frustrating and tortuous exercise for many. And yet, we…
“Did you see? Caramel hurt his withers again. I can’t get it to heal. He’s off right now. He’s holding back, he’s super tense, he isn’t jumping well…he’s almost lame. I don’t know what to do. Do you have a good cream I could use or a chiropractor I could talk to?” “Sure, but I have something even better…a good saddle maker!” Just like with the bit, we tend to not pay attention to our saddle. However, it plays a…
