I went outside to have a cup of tea and watch some clinic horses grazing. It was a peaceful, serene sight. Then something caught my eye. One of the horses was doing some deep knee bends, followed by some squats. The horse next to it did a series of hindquarters stretches and then some jumping jacks.

I thought to myself, “What the hell?” Then it all made sense to me when I saw the two horses trotting across the paddock together.

Clearly, the horses were doing some warm up exercises before they went for their 50m trot. Smart horses. Their riders had obviously taught them well about the importance of warming up before exercising.

Let’s talk about the “warm up” thing.

Let me say that doing warm up exercise is never going to do harm. There is no reason to believe that it is a bad thing. But for most of us, it probably does not offer many advantages.

The purpose of performing warming up exercises is to increase blood flow to muscle beds. Muscles are moving machines. They have muscle fibres that pass across the surface of each other during contraction through chemical reactions. This takes energy, which is derived from oxygen and nutrients that are supplied by blood to the site where the work is being done. In addition, the mechanical work of the muscle fibres produces metabolic waste products and heat that need to be shunted away from the site and dealt with largely by the kidneys, lungs, and liver. So the idea of warming up a horse is to increase the flow of blood to the muscle beds in preparation for the increased amount of work they will perform during exercise. For most people, warming a horse up consists of either mild exercise or stretches or both.

It is my experience that most people misunderstand “warming up.” They think that by riding their horse or lunging their horse, they are asking a horse to do strenuous exercise. In reality, most horses are sufficiently prepared for the work most riders will ask of their horse just by walking them from the paddock to the arena. The majority of horses do not go from being saddled to instant strenuous exercise without some walking, either from the paddock to the mounting block, or to walking to adjust the girth before mounting, etc. The importance of warming up a horse is most urgent when a horse is asked for explosive exercise, such as race horses or horses jumping very large obstacles. But most of us only ask a horse to perform moderate exercise and jump modest jumps (1.5m or less).

Yet I see so many riders spend 15 minutes or so walking their horse around in order to warm it up for a 30min session of walk, trot, and canter in the arena. I came across a website today that described 30 minutes of warm up exercises for 20 minutes of training. Even a racehorse is only lightly walked before having to perform, perhaps the most physically strenuous exercise any horse is asked to do.

But let me get onto the topic that is most bothering me about the aspect of the warming up process that some people use. A lot of people have told me they like to warm up their horse for several minutes before beginning to work with their horse.

I have said many times that training is all about directing a horse’s thought. And I want to stress that a horse’s brain is not a muscle. A brain does not have moving parts. Even when it is working its hardest, the brain does not need warming up. I don’t remember when I sat exams at university, that the first few questions were not part of the test because the professor just offered them as “warm up” questions. If I ask a person their 3 times multiplication table, do I need to warm their brain up with the 2 times table first? I don’t think so.

Therefore, it’s not okay to let a horse lose focus or be distracted or not be soft and responsive to your aids just because you are warming it up and have not yet begun the “proper work.” Yet I have heard from riders that they are just warming their horse up before they start the real work. When I pointed out some things about their horse that I felt needed addressing, it seemed less important to the rider than warming their horse up. A lady was lunging her horse at a clinic, and it was very counterbalanced. When I brought this to her attention, she said, “Yeah, I know, but I’m just warming her up first.” To me, this is a completely bizarre concept. How does a horse know that it’s okay to ignore a rider and straightness doesn’t matter during the warm up, but knows to get its act together when the real training begins? Where does this idea come from?

As I said, it’s okay if you want to warm up your horse with light exercise and stretches before starting the more strenuous aspect of a workout – if that’s what you want. Most horses don’t need it, but it does no harm. But it’s not okay to let the mental and emotional part of the training fall apart just because a person wants to focus on warming up the muscles of their horse.

WARMING A HORSE UP

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