Conquer the Cold with these Three Winter Weather Riding Exercises By Summer Grace
USEA/ Leslie Mintz photo. Riding in the winter can be a bit of a perilous effort — cold temperatures, lack of turnout time, and confinement to smaller spaces all make for difficulties to navigate during this long, dark season. Luckily, USEA Instructors’ Certification Program (ICP) Level III Certified Instructor Jennifer Rousseau has a handful of tactful tricks to keep both you and your partner engaged all winter long.
condition will retain his/her body condition for 30 days without any work whatsoever, but a rider can prolong their downtime by hacking. Even if mostly
walking, try to use hills and transitions to prevent the horse from losing all muscle tone. When the weather feels too chilly or the ground appears too hard for more intense work, Rousseau suggests taking advantage of your time out hacking to improve on your dressage movements! One of the best places to teach an experienced horse (Training level and above) new things and to keep his level of motivation high, is to find ways to incorporate some of the movements from the
1) Do not underestimate the benefit of hacking out! Rousseau pointed out that hacking out can prove incredibly beneficial for both your horse’s health and soundness of mind prior to the season of being stuck inside. A horse in average to good physical
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