Jessi's Q & A - March 2010 - Southern States

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Jessi's Q & A - March 2010

Jessi Lohman Manager of Equine Marketing

By Jessica Lohman

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Getting Your Horse “Legged Up” for Spring

Q: I haven’t been able to ride much this winter because of the constant snow and ice. I am hoping that March produces some better weather for trail riding. I know my horse is going to be wild as a March hare when I get on him for the first time. How can I ease him back into his weekly trailing riding routine without much drama?

A. Safety first! If you truly think that your horse is going to be wild – make sure someone is there when you ride him for the first few times. You can start off by just taking some short rides around the property or up and down the driveway before you go back to your longer trail ride routines. If just “saddling” him is going to send him into orbit, you have a few outside assistants available to you. You can let him jog loosely on the lunge line for 10 minutes before you get on. You could also administer a mild calming paste that will relax your horse such as Quietex™ or Perfect Prep EQ™. These products do a good job of “taking the edge off” – for your safety’s sake.

Q: I live in an area that doesn’t have an indoor show facility, so my western pleasure horse basically had to take the winter off. How can I get him fit enough to be ready for the spring shows, without the risk of hurting him? He also has some soundness issues.

A. If your horse has some soundness issues and has had a few months off, it might be a good idea to have your vet look at him to make sure that your riding season doesn’t need to start off with some routine maintenance of either his hooves or joints. After your horse is declared sound enough to go back into work, just remember to take things slowly. Spend the first week just walking!! After you’ve reached walking for a 20 minute period, slowly add in jogging during your second week back in the tack. After you’ve been walking/jogging for 20 minutes (10 of walking and 10 of jogging), you can bring loping back into the mix during the third week. After four weeks of a good flatwork program that incorporates bending and flexing exercise, you should be ready to hit the show ring to earn your blue ribbons!

Q: Being a fair-weather rider who shows in the Pre-Adult Hunters, I didn’t get to do much this winter with my mare due to the horrible weather. I’d like to have a plan in place before I start showing her over jumps again this spring. Any ideas?

A. Follow the flatwork advice above. Feel free to incorporate trot and canter poles into your routine. After your horse’s hind end is feeling strong, trot and canter some small single verticals (2’). When you are ready to progress, gymnastics are a great way to get stronger and to get the horse and rider’s form back in place. A great simple exercise would be a trot rail placed 9’ out from an 18” X, then 20’ to a 2’ vertical. As your horse gets comfortable with the gymnastic, you can increase the “out” to 2’6” and eventually make it an oxer. After some practice through gymnastics a few times, incorporate trotting in and cantering out of lines. Set a line at 58’(with the first element a vertical at 2’ and the second element either a vertical or oxer at 2’3”-2’6”). The first few times you go through the line, enter it at the trot and do the “add stride” (which would be 5 strides). When you feel your horse is listening to you, enter the line a few times at the canter and ask him to do the “real strides” in 4 strides. When you have worked through your line for a few days, pretty soon you will be able to incorporate some other singles and other lines until you are strong enough to navigate around entire courses. Have fun!

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