Winter Warriors: Building Strength in The Cold, 5 Exercises and Tips To Enduring Winters With Your Horse
- Sophia Strain, All In Stride Media
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
The start of winter signals the start of the transition to Florida for many show barns and their riders, but what does it mean when attending WEF or WEC is not feasible? Whether it's due to finances, work, life simply not allowing for it, or you just don’t want to, there are lots of reasons why you might experience winter in full force. The important thing is keeping your horse fit and still enjoying riding, even when you can’t feel your toes! When migrating to the sunshine state for the season isn’t an option, here are some tips to help you and your horse survive the cold.
1. Properly Warm Up
Just like you need to warm up before you work out, so does your horse. While you should always give your horse ample time to warm up before a ride, it is especially important in the winter. Walking for at least ten to fifteen minutes at the start of your ride can drastically improve the quality of the ride ahead. It will also aid in preventing injury, as walking increases blood flow, loosens up your horse’s joints, and essentially prepares their body for more strenuous work. If your horse ever comes out feeling “stiff” in the cold months — walk for even longer! When you are ready to get started with your ride, pick up the trot on a loose rein and simply encourage your horse to go forward and loosen up. In the cold, my rule of thumb is that my “warm up time” should be no shorter than twenty minutes. You may begin to feel a real difference in your horse if you begin your ride with a proper warm up.
2. Focus On The Details
While there are some horse shows in the winter, not everyone wants to brave the cold quite that much. Taking some time off of showing can be beneficial for both horse and rider, and gives you the opportunity to focus on fine tuning your riding. Going in circles at the walk, trot, and canter in your indoor arena can definitely become monotonous! Keeping things interesting is not only going to make things more enjoyable for you, but also your horse. Implementing different flat exercises, doing pole or cavaletti work, creating different flat patterns, and even having a “long and loose” hack are all ways that you can keep your horse's brain entertained, and quieter!
Some of my favorite exercises on the flat are to focus on adjustability – lengthening and shortening my horse’s stride at different points in the ring, as well as lateral work to encourage my horse to become more supple throughout their entire bodies. Just as you may feel stiff in the cold, so does your horse, so ensuring that you properly work their muscles in the cold temperatures will only help you and your horse feel better.
3. Practice Strength Training
As for the rider, what better time to get yourself stronger than in the winter months? Not only will physical exercise keep you warmer, but we want to put our best foot forward when the warmer weather and show season are upon us. Making the most of the cold months to hunker down and get both horse and rider stronger is only going to yield better results come summer. Some ways to improve a rider’s strength involve no stirrup work (everyone’s favorite!), riding in your two-point or light seat, and riding with longer stirrups.
Riding without your irons is an exercise most, if not all, trainers have riders do at some point in their careers. While some may dread non-stirrup work, the exercise will truly help riders in the long run. Not relying on our stirrups for transitions, lateral work, and even jumping will make you feel more in tune with your horse and their stride. Riding in your two point or light seat will encourage your leg to stretch down and around your horse, strengthen your calf and your core, as well as give your horse time to loosen up their own backs. I like to begin most of my rides by trotting around in my two-point; making myself stronger as well as letting my horse warm up their back. Riding with longer stirrups can be just as beneficial as riding without your irons. Dropping your stirrups 3–4 holes down from your normal length will have you, as the rider, focusing on keeping your leg position correct as well as keeping your balance in the saddle. All of these exercises will only aid in getting you and your horse more fit and will hopefully help distract from the blistering cold, for a little while!
4. Maintain Mental Motivation
While it is easy to focus on the physical aspects of riding and ways to better yourself in the cold months, it is important to recognize the mental challenges as well. If you are working a full time job that requires you to be occupied until the evening hours, it can prove to be heavily unmotivating to go ride your horse when you look outside and see complete darkness. This is something many people struggle with, especially when the temperature reads below freezing.
While the limited daylight hours do not help any motivation to go out and ride, making the best of it is sometimes all you can do. This starts with your mindset. Have a goal in mind for every ride that you have, and working to achieve that goal can make the experience more enjoyable. Now, your goals do not have to be anything strenuous, it can be something as simple as “get my horse to stretch down into the bridle while on a loose rein” or “have my horse listen to my voice commands during downward transitions.” Having a goal in mind for each ride can give you the motivation to work just a bit harder and keep things fun. Some days, you may challenge yourself by setting goals to improve your riding or your horse’s way of going. A goal for yourself can be something such as “ride without my irons for 30 minutes” or “hold my two-point for my entire warm up.” Keeping yourself accountable to these goals by logging it in a journal or even just keeping track with your phone notes app will help you to have something to look forward to every ride!
5. Ride With Friends
On the same topic of mental motivation, riding with others can also be a big boost to your incentive to get out in the cold. Having a friend to not only keep you company, but also keep you accountable, can significantly help your riding progress. Whether or not this friend rides with you is irrelevant, because simply having that other person there makes things more interesting. If the person you are with does not ride, have them help you achieve your goals while standing on the arena sidelines. You can have that person time how long you are riding, give them certain things to look out for in your riding (like if your heels are down!), and to encourage you to keep going if you want to give up early.
On the other side, if you are riding with a fellow equestrian, you can come up with different exercises for each of you to complete. A favorite of mine, that my friend and I do quite often, is give each other certain “flat tests” to complete. We typically each create a flat pattern that focuses on specific details that the other person wants to work on or has a weakness in. Then, we each complete the test and give each other feedback. While this is not a replacement for lessons with a trainer, having another eye on your riding and giving you tips can always be helpful. This makes the time go by faster and makes things so fun that you almost forget about the cold!
Riding in the winter is not for the weak, but it is something that some riders must endure. Making the best of the time you have in the saddle is so important, as it is a privilege to be able to ride horses, no matter the weather. As equestrians, it is our job to do right by the horse and put them first. Considering a horse’s health and well-being in winter is the first step, and then we can focus on our own goals as riders. While nothing about winter is ideal for equestrians, there are many ways to make the time go by faster and in a more enjoyable manner. We should think of winter as a time of preparation and training; a way to better yourself so that when warm weather approaches, you will feel strong and ready to take on the summer.
Sophia Strain
All In Stride Media
Sophia Strain, 24, is based in northern New Jersey and has worked in the equine insurance field since her graduation from Centenary University in 2023. As a strong enthusiast of writing and journalism, she also runs All In Stride Media: her own brand specializing in content creation, editorial work, and brand management. Outside of work, Sophia can be found riding her lease horse, “B,” or enjoying a good book.
This article is from the December issue of Equine Business Magazine
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