Warm Up Routines

There was a post going around facebook about how important walking is for horses' joints. It recommended 15 minutes of walking prior to work because that's how long it takes to warm up the synovial fluid in joints, which I and I feel like most people do. But it made me think about how I warm TC up and why I choose to do it this way.

TC and I start with 10-15 minutes of wandering around the ranch. I'm a big believer in walking on hard ground being necessary for horses. Their circulation depends on the compression of their feet, so I always think of my 10-15 minute walks around the ranch as checking that box. When it's raining, I can't do this work, but I have been known to hand walk in the barn aisles sometimes.

It takes a bit of time to get to this place

Our walking around the ranch is on a loose rein. He's a really good boy about it, so I almost never have to pick up the reins. I pick up the reins when I go into the arena and then we do another at least 5 minutes of working on his medium and extended walk. TC likes to jig in the walk, so I try to do 10-15 minutes of arena walking throughout our workout to really drive that home. I want to be able to add energy in the show ring without always getting jigging.

After that, we go into a stretching trot and canter. I don't warm TC off the bit or on a loose rein. Why? Because I think the point of warm up is to warm up the muscles I want him to use in his workout, and that means his topline muscles. Warming him up off the bit defeats the purpose, it just warms up muscles I don't want him to use so he can... use them better? So that's a no for us. But I do warm him up his working gaits, lower in the poll and longer in the neck (and TC always asks if he can be BTV so a lot of my warm up is me saying no, get your nose out lol).

I haven't tracked how long we stretch for, but it's probably 10 or so minutes. Just a quick trot and canter with a short walk in between. The walk again is a medium walk, on the aids, marching. If I'm in the covered with mirrors, I look for overtrack and frame lengthening. If I'm out in the court, I can see a small amount in the reflection of one of the boxes so I can kind of keep an eye on that too.

I need to take more pictures of him before he goes completely
white! 

I basically go through the training scale for warm up. TC's tempo and energy are always pretty good, but the first trot steps are where I address that, don't get too quick (his tendency) and don't get behind the leg. Then we begin suppleness and bend with large figures. Then I evaluate the connection, is he willing to reach (if he had his way, he'd live behind the vertical). Then we move into impulsion, his tendency is to not swing enough through his back, so the stretching part of the warm up includes that. We save straightness and collection for real work, because that is our main focus right now.

My main goals in warm up are to address any issues that can be addressed in his working gaits. Right now the level of straightness I'm asking from him requires a bit of collection, he has to maintain more mobility in his forehand so that I can put him straight and work on movements like shoulder-in and renvers to help him develop the strength for straightness. But if I've got a tempo issue or a suppleness issue or a connection issue or he's not using his back well, I can address those in the working gaits before bringing him up into collection. The working gaits are less hard on him physically, so that's a plus, less wear and tear.

We also do a lot of walking on the trails

After warm up, I go right into my ride! I am trying to put together a little bit more comprehensive a training plan for TC. I have a pretty firm schedule on what I'd like him to be able to do each quarter or so, but our week-to-week training is very lax. This was by design when he was a young horse, he'd sometimes come out offering things and I'd just roll with it, or he'd be kind of a nut so planning out rides was a waste of time if I get on and the entire ride was me trying to keep a lid on him.

He's more predictable now, so I'm hoping to put together better programming for him, let's call it. The purpose would be to not overschool movements that he already knows well, not exhaust him by doing too many days in a row working on a singular thing, and keep track of all the goddamn movements we're going to have to do in the future. It's easy to school all the First level movements in a ride, but beyond that, it's just not fair to ask him to do every single movement from Third, plus the stuff we're beginning to school in Fourth, and the half steps, and all the Second level stuff he needs to keep refreshed for showing that level this spring/summer. It's getting complicated!

So more on that in another post!