0407 Training Article -- Restarting your horse in the spring

Restarting Your Horse in the Spring

Spring is here, YIPPEE!

Finally we can ride in the sun and be warm again.

Of course, once spring is here, we have to get our horses ready to ride. This means getting them in shape -- and to do that we need to get them out of their barn or pasture and put some miles on them. Naturally we can’t put many miles on them if they’re too full of themselves to ride. During this time of year, I often get questioned about how to restart the horse that hasn’t been worked much during the winter months. Not everyone has a covered arena to ride in, and in many places the sheer cold makes riding on a regular or lengthy basis a challenge.

Too often after a long time away from riding, someone will get a horse out of the field, lunge them, throw a saddle on them and start to ride. All too often they will find out that “Fluffy the Horse” has more spunk on the inside than that heavy winter coat on the outside belies.

What everyone needs to do is go back to some solid basics first. Reminding your horse to relax while being haltered and walk quietly along side you down the driveway and into the woods or onto the trail system is far more important at this point than just throwing a saddle on them and hoping that things will work out. Try going over all of your basic ground work skills for the first week such as, lowering their head, moving the shoulders, disengaging the hind end, backing quietly and effectively, side passing right and left... Take your horse for a walk away from the barn and see how much of a herd-bound mentality has developed. Taking a walk is good for both you and your horse. I often take my horse for a walk at the same time I go for one – it’s one of the few things I can multi-task. In all seriousness, I would rather take a horse that hasn’t been ridden all winter on three or four walks, making them behave of course, than try to take them for three or four rides right out of the gate.

Once you’ve done some ground work basics, then put the saddle on your horse and do it all again. Why do it without the saddle first? Because if your horse has sat all winter, fixing the ground manners without any other additional stimulus might be the best thing. Naturally each of you can decide what you need to do and what you don’t need to do, and each of you will be in a different place. There are some horses that can sit all winter and be ridden the first day of spring without incident. Others act like they’ve never had a rider on their back during the first three or four rides.

The nice thing about starting at the beginning is this; if your horse isn’t having any issues, you can quickly progress to the next step. Sometimes this can be done in a matter of hours; sometimes it takes days or weeks. But if you start too fast and throw that saddle on and hop right up there and your horse goes to bucking, you may be one of the first casualties of spring. It’s much easier to speed the training along from a basic starting point than to have to slow it down and take steps backward when something has gone wrong.

Once your horse has been out a little bit, worn the saddle and bridle a few times during your walks without incident, and is listening to you effectively and under stress, then it’s time to get up and go for a ride. Take that first ride in a round pen or other enclosed area.

The way to ride is to start out simply at the walk and test all of your cues. Does your horse move quietly off your leg? Does he stop quickly? Will he turn right and left easily? How does your horse back up? If your horse has forgotten any of those things, get them fixed up before you leave the pen or arena. It’s a shame that too often someone takes that first ride and ends up hurt because they didn’t review the basics before they went left the arena. That conversation goes something like this… “Yea, he was a little keyed up when we left, but I figured he would calm down once we got going…” Or, “I don’t know what spooked him, but suddenly he whirled and bucked and I hit the ground and broke this shoulder.”

Taking the winter doldrums out of your horse and controlling the springtime excitement doesn’t have to take long or be tedious. A simple program of basics will get you riding SAFELY again in no time. Come to think of it, isn’t that what all the professional athletes do? They all head for spring training. Maybe you and your horse should, too.