How to have effective relaxation?

Relaxation is that moment that is often a little frustrating during which you cannot yet work completely and during which you have to accept that your horse is a little cold. It is not always easy to have enough patience during this moment. However, relaxation is of capital importance. How can you have effective relaxation? We talk about it in this article.

Warming up your horse on big curves

The first thing to do when relaxing will be to warm up the horse by walking, trotting or galloping quietly for a few minutes. This course can be done in a straight line or in large circles without the rider being demanding on the handling. This will allow the horse to increase its body temperature and warm its joints with easy and natural movements.

As a movement exercise, you can, for example, do the serpentine at the trot, the walk-trot transitions on the circle, the trot-gallop transitions on the circle or even change the attitude.

Increase the range of motion of the joints upwards

To increase the range of motion, it is possible to chain on ground bars at all three gaits. You will thus be able to start working the ligaments as well as the tendons of your horse. You can possibly raise the bars in order to increase the stress a little. This is an exercise equivalent to the heel buttocks and knee raises. For example, you can do the ground bars or at the trot or gallop or even the raised bars at the trot or gallop.

Increase the range of motion of the joints to the side

After the first two steps mentioned above, you can perform some easy lateral exercises at the three gaits in order to warm up the joints on much larger and lateral movements. You will thus be able to use the horses' abductor and adductor muscles. It is a bit like the chassé steps.

This will also help to gradually bring the horse into a working attitude. If you have a more or less young horse, you can replace these exercises with tighter turns. The spiral, the slalom, the counter change of hand in yield to the leg, the half-volte in yield to the leg or even the serpentine in gallop are interesting exercises that you can do.

Perform extensions

You can combine all the exercises mentioned above with stretching exercises to increase cardio work. This is a bit like sprinting. The movement exercises that you can do in these cases are, for example, stretching exercises on a circle, starting at an extended trot or even the accordion spiral.

Have the necessary equipment

The other thing that is important to consider before even trying to have an effective relaxation is the equipment. In horse riding, having the basic equipment is fundamental to facilitate the exercises in all their aspects. You will find interesting equipment on La Sellerie Française .