How to Keep Your Horse Fit Through Challenging Weather

No matter where you live, there comes a time when the weather makes it feel impossible to continue training and exercising your horse. Similar to people, it can be hard for a horse to stay fit when they are exercised sporadically, especially due to changing weather. To stay fit, a horse needs to be consistently worked several times a week. Fall, winter, and spring pose challenges to exercising such as rain, mud, poor footing to ride in, snow, icy conditions, lack of motivation, and potential problems with their hooves. Through those challenges, believe it or not, there are still ways to exercise your horse!

Proper Gear and Equine Health

Before you get started, make sure you and your horse are prepared to continue working through challenging weather. Proper hoof care is very important when the weather changes. Muddy conditions, snow, ice, and different arena and paddock footing can all impact the horses hooves. Talk with your farrier to discuss the best option of shoes, padding, traction, and the horses living conditions.

Keep note of your horse’s body temperature and sweat during cold temperatures. Turning a horse out with sweat can cause the sweat to freeze, lowering their body temperature and giving them a chill. If your horse does work up into a sweat, make sure you properly cool them out after the workout. A cooler sheet will help them dry after a workout, or consider getting your horse a body clip or trace clip to help keep them cool during a workout. If you do choose to clip your horse, you will need to have a proper blanket for them to stay warm during cold weather.

Important gear to have includes: 

• Waterproof blanket for your horse
• Cooling sheet
• Fleece exercise rug
• Solid hoof pick with a brush on the end
• Metal curry comb and a hard bristle brush
• Sweat Scraper
• A horse vacuum (to help dry sweat after a workout-optional)
• Proper gear for yourself: waterproof riding boots, gloves, fleece pants, waterproof jacket, warm layers
• Waterless shampoo: To help rub out sweat and stains
• Hot towel: for rubbing them down after a nice workout- nothing beats a little elbow grease!

Finding the Motivation

Once you have the proper gear to ride through any weather condition, the first step to keeping your horse fit, is to stay motivated! Creating training goals with a set time frame to achieve them will help you find motivation to get out there and work your horse, no matter what challenges present themselves.

Know that there are always other options to exercising your horse. If you don’t feel like riding, there are still plenty of ways to exercise and work your horse. The hardest part will be getting out of your recliner sofa and putting on your boots.

How to set goals: 

1. Look at the big picture of your training and horse and come up with an end goal you would like to achieve by the end of the year.

Example: Train at second level by the end of the year

2. Break down the big goal into 3 objectives that will help you achieve that goal. Objectives are specific steps to help you achieve goals

Example: Ride in 3 clinics by October, take a lesson with Sarah every other week, hack out 1x a week 

3. Tell your trainer, friends, and horse about your goal: That way you have to be accountable for your goal!

With goals and objectives, you will be able to find the motivation to keep your horse fit, or else you will fall behind and might not reach your goal!

Exercise Your Horse Without Riding

So what happens when you can’t find the motivation to get yourself in the saddle after a blizzard drops 3 feet of snow that sticks around for weeks? Don’t fret- there are plenty of ways to keep your horse fit! Don’t forget when exercising your horse, monitor your horse’s fitness level and how much you are doing to avoid overworking or putting your horse at risk for injury.

Here are some exercises you can do with your horse when you aren’t in the saddle. 

1. Lunging: If you have a good place to free lunge your horse with solid footing and fencing, let them exercise themself! They can get sweaty quickly, so monitor how much they are breathing and working. If you have a horse who tends to overdo it, lunge them on the lunge line. On the lunge line, make sure you work both sides for the same amount of time at the walk, trot, and canter. Lunging is hard work for a horse as working on a circle requires lots of flexibility and balance.
2. Ground work: Ground work is training the horse from the ground with a halter and lead rope to move off of pressure, bend, back up, yield their haunches and forehand, trot, and even do tricks! Ground work is fun for you and the horse and can give the horse exercise mentally and physically. There is always something new you can teach your horse from the ground, such as a side pass, and you can do ground work daily!
3. Long Lining: Long lining is a great tool to get your horse working while you are on the ground. It is essentially driving your horse while you walk behind them. You can ask them to collect, bend, and engage their body without being on their back. It is a great training tool!

No Indoor Arena? You can still ride!

You have the motivation, you have the proper gear, your horse is fit and healthy, but the blizzard has left 3 feet of snow and you don’t have an indoor arena to train in… What now? Have FUN and trust your horse!

Provided your horse is comfortable walking in the snow, healthy enough to do so, and the footing is safe (AKA you know what’s under all that white stuff), jump on and go for a little ride around. Riding in snow, mud, and water requires your horse to balance and engage their hindquarters naturally…so will be a great workout for them even at the walk. Walking for just 15 minutes in such conditions will be a great workout for your horse.

Consistency is Key

The hardest part of keeping your horse fit through challenging weather is being consistent. As all these different factors change around you and your horse, the temperature, the footing, the overcrowded indoor arena, you just have to keep showing up. Put on those boots, get out of the house, and commit to being with your horse 4-5 days a week to keep them fit! Anything is better than nothing, even in the mud and snow!