The Warm-Up

Getting it right

As an athlete, your horse needs to be correctly warmed up for the work he has to perform. If you’re tight for time, it can be tempting to scrimp on this crucial phase, but you do this at your peril, as cutting the warm-up short is a sure-fire way to increase the likelihood of injury. Cold muscles are much more fragile and prone to injury than warm muscles, so a wellstructured flatwork warm-up is essential before any kind of schooling session.

PART 1: PLENTY OF WALKING

Start your session with plenty of active walk, ideally on a long rein and encouraging your horse to stretch. Getting the blood flowing to his muscles, particularly if he has just come out of the stable, is important and allows you to move on to the next stages more confidently. Ideally, if possible, you should do this walking outside of the arena. If you have access to safe outrides, you can even start by walking an ‘outride’ route for 10-15 minutes or so, before returning to the arena to start your session. Work outside the arena prevents your horse becoming ‘sour’ and also adds some uneven terrain into the mix – walking over ground that is not perfectly flat really warms up the muscles very well.

PART 2: TRANSITIONS