Hello and welcome to my first blog.

I thought I would start with exercise, as many people with older horses or those considering resting or retiring their horse often want to keep them in work for as long as possible prior to complete retirement. With this in mind, I have asked my good friend Rachael Cowie who rides my horse Mr. Darcy and a number of the older horses to give her view on this topic?

Exercising the Older Horse.

Exercising, it’s hard enough to exercise and motivate ourselves, and when you have an older horse it can be hard trying to find different things to do, especially in the winter months. However, it’s all about planning what you want to do and having the time to do it in the first place!

Having ridden in all phases, Dressage, Show Jumping and X-Country, your flat work is the most important, this enables you to have control and engages horse and rider to become a team and work together. All horses respond differently, one technique may not work on your horse. It takes time to learn what works for you both, and like people horses have good days and bad days too.

Coming up to the winter and through the winter months, older horses can stiffen up, even if they have been out in the field, or in the stable. By gently warming them up by lunging them first for 10-15mins, use side reins to encourage them to work through their back and engage their hocks, otherwise they are going to hollow. This does nothing for the horse, as they are not working correctly. You want them to be ‘tracking up’ this is so you can see where they put their front legs and the hind legs are landing in that hoof print or stepping over it, if its falling behind then you want to push them forward, but don’t rush.

If your horse does like to rush forward, or leans on to the forehand, ‘half halt’ with your inside rein use your inside leg and push in to your out side rein – check you are not driving them forward with your seat, use your seat and leg to control and up in to the hand, down in to the contact. For older horses, they may find it easier to walk, canter and then trot; I have found this works much better.

In the walk, have a soft contact and gradually collect the reins as you work them in to the contact if you can set out cones in the corners to encourage you to use them. At every other letter do 10 meter circles, use your seat and leg, and remember inside leg to outside hand, your inside rein should be soft, with a contact but not fixed and don’t drop your inside shoulder, look up and around to where you want to go. Do the same in trot, and increase to 15 meter circles for canter. Make sure this is repeated on both reins.

For a cool down and for them to stretch, keep the contact, stay in trot on a 20 meter circle between B-E, decrease the circle to 15-10meters and encourage your horse to take the reins, as long as they are stretching down, still keep the contact, do this on both reins. This encourages them to stretch through their back. When ready, come to a walk, to avoid them bringing their head up you may want to stay in rising trot and then sit gently in to the saddle once in walk (whatever you are comfortable doing)

Hope the above helps, you can do this with any age horse, it is good for a warm up and encourages the older horses to bend and stretch and for you as a rider to make sure you are sitting correctly, and remember to look up!

Thanks Rachael.

If you have any topics or issues you would like exploring please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards,

Niccola Millar-Foy