How to warm up effectively

The warm-up is often a slightly frustrating moment: you can't get down to proper work yet, and you have to accept that your horse is still a bit cold. It isn't always easy to be patient at this stage. Yet the warm-up matters enormously. So how do you warm up effectively? That's what we look at in this article.

Warming your horse up on big curves

The first thing to do in the warm-up is to get the horse warm by moving quietly for a few minutes in walk, trot or canter. You can do this on straight lines or on large circles, without the rider being demanding about the outline. This allows the horse to raise his body temperature and warm his joints up through easy, natural movements.

As movement exercises you could try, for instance, serpentines in trot, walk–trot transitions on a circle, trot–canter transitions on a circle, or changing the outline.

Increasing the range of joint movement upwards

To increase the range of movement, you can move on to poles on the ground in all three paces. This is where you start to work your horse's ligaments and tendons. You can raise the poles if you want to ask a little more. It's the equivalent of heel flicks and high knees. You might do, for example, ground poles in trot or canter, or raised poles in trot or canter.

Increasing the range of joint movement sideways

After the two stages above, you can do a few easy lateral exercises in all three paces to warm the joints up through much bigger, sideways movements. This works the horse's abductor and adductor muscles. It's a bit like doing side steps.

It also helps bring the horse gradually into a working outline. If your horse is fairly young, you can replace these exercises with tighter turns. The spiral, slalom, counter change of hand in leg-yield, half-volte in leg-yield and serpentines in canter are all useful exercises to try.

Working on lengthenings

You can combine all the exercises above with lengthenings to increase the cardio work. It's a bit like doing sprints. The movement exercises you might use here include lengthening on a circle, moving up into extended trot, or the accordion spiral.

Having the right kit

The other thing to think about, even before you start working on an effective warm-up, is your equipment. In riding, having the basic kit is essential to make every aspect of your exercises easier. You'll find plenty of useful equipment at La Sellerie Française.