horse training

Camps are becoming more and more popular among riders of every discipline, pony clubs and riding clubs.  They are a great way to get a variety of lessons, with a variety of instructors at some great venues, also to have lots of fun with your friends and make lasting memories with your four legged friend.  However, as an instructor and physical therapist I have worked at many camps over the years so have seen the good the bad and the ugly!! As camp season is in full flow I feel it is important for your horses’ welfare for you take on board my top 6 points to ensure your horse is as happy with their experience of camp as you are.

1. Don’t throw you horse into it – make sure they are fit enough to do the level of work that you want them to.  Far too often I have seen people at camp that are just getting their horse back into work and thought that camp would be a good start.  At the majority of camps horses are having 2 lessons per day of approximately 1 hour per lesson for 2 -3 days on the trot, flat work, jumping, cross-country.  This is a level of work that they are not fit enough for, and pushing them to do this can be detrimental to their health and can cause injury, as the muscles and cardiovascular system are not accustomed to the level of work required.  Make sure a correct fitness regime is followed in the lead up to camp and you are getting towards the end of it before subjecting your horses to this level of activity.
2. Don’t do too much & if your horse is showing signs of fatigue stop.  Don’t feel you need to get your money’s worth by carrying on, completing every lesson to the end, jump every jump, do all the farm rides etc. as your horse WILL be fatiguing.  If they start flagging cool the off and let them rest if they are not able to do their next lesson that’s fine.  When horses fatigue they are a lot more likely to have an accident or suffer from an injury, it is not worth the long term welfare of your horse.  Signs of fatigue include:

You may miss out on some of your lessons, or not jump the big jump at the end, but at least your horse won’t suffer a catastrophic injury or be so fatigued they can’t carry on to do a lesson the next day.

3. Take your own hay/haylage – even if the venue provide it for the duration still make sure you take enough of your own to last for the time.  2 reasons, number 1; if your horse doesn’t like the forage that they provide they will have nothing to eat, 2; changing forage can be extremely upsetting for your horses digestive system.  Take your own so you can mix it with what the venue provide to ensure a slow change to not shock the digestive system, the 2-3 days you will be there isn’t long enough to change over completely, so again for the return home take a few nets of their forage with you to again mix with your usual stuff when you get home to ensure a gradual change back to your usual hay or haylage.

4. Use a good digestive balancer – I have seen many horses suffer with digestive issues while at camp such as colic and diarrhoea.  The usual causes are increased stress, travelling, the change in forage, change in routine, lack of turn out, increased work load to name a few so always give your horse a good digestive balancer even just for the short term.  Start a few days before you travel to camp, continue while at camp and carry on for a few days after you return home. 

5. Another issue seen regularly at camp or shortly after returning home is exertional rhabdomyolysis also known as azoturia or Monday morning syndrome.  There are many causes but the ones that usual relate to the camp situation are overfeeding non-structural carbohydrates (grain/pellets) as most realise the horse will be working more so increase their feed, poor conditioning or fitness, sudden increase of workload which we have already discussed, working too hard after a period of rest, especially if the feed ration was not reduced.  Another common reason at camp is electrolyte or mineral imbalances, especially potassium.  Therefore, along with a high quality digestive balancer it is important to feed a decent electrolyte. 

6. Choose camps where its not all about the riding and work, work , work. I’m seeing more and more camps coming up that are not just all about the work and the riding and getting that picture of you going over the biggest jump possible to get a good insta pic which your horse probably isn’t ready for! It should be more about you learning and your horse learning, ground work, behavioural work, horse pilates sessions, rider pilates sessions, as well as some ridden work but again ridden work of a different variety; rider biomechanics, horse biomechanics, and fetching all of this work to your flat work/jump lessons. I love these types of camps, these are the most beneficial short term and long term for your horses health and wellbeing. I would love to see more and more of theses sorts of camps going on than the traditional ones that have developed.

For more information and advice feel free to contact me for a chat

No matter what discipline, if any, a horses’ training programme needs to be fully balanced and progressive to include all aspects of fitness (cardiovascular, speed, stamina, endurance, strength, suppleness, flexibility, coordination, agility, balance), plus working through the scales of training; rhythm, suppleness, contact, impulsion, straightness, collection, and improvement of skill level. A training programme needs to progressively overload the systems of the body for optimal and functional adaptation. Training and conditioning for all disciplines is a very fine balance between optimal adaptation and an overuse injury. Trying to work on all of these factors within one discipline can only be done through repetitive movements which is the major cause of overuse injuries such as ligament issues, mainly suspensory, tendon issues, muscle strain, wear and tear on the joints.

What is cross training?

Cross training involves adding different types of exercise, movement, disciplines or modalities into a training routine to achieve an overall more rounded fitness level and set of skills that the body can then call on when needed. If a horse is constantly trained dressage on a perfectly harrowed surface, one day for some reason there is a rut on the surface or a slightly hard patch due to frost or drought, causes the horse to roll on its step that it is not used to doing which takes the limb rotation into a different plane it is not used to, this can cause a strain on the DDFT or other soft tissues for example. If this horse was regularly ridden on varied or uneven terrain, grass, roads, hardcore, its tissues of the limbs in particular would be better conditioned to the variety in movement and would have no issue in coping with this minor anomaly in the surface.

Why cross train?

In human research athletes who specialise in a single sport had an 85% higher chance of injury than those who that do multiple activities (McGuine et al. 2017), this is expected to be higher in horses.

For a horse specialised in an individual discipline (ie exclusively a show jumper, exclusively a dressage horse), the repeated loading and strain from the one particular movement in one plane, doing the same thing day in day out will have the same effect. But also repeated riding in a poor movement pattern or with compensatory mechanisms in play being repetitively overloaded will also cause training overload associated injury, e.g. lack of flexibility, suppleness, fitness, subtle lameness/ unsoundness or asymmetry, pain, unbalanced rider as a one off may not cause much of a problem to the horse but if this is a repeated pattern will lead to injury. Hence, this is also another major reason for:

a.) Having your horse regularly checked and treated by an advanced qualified and experienced equine physical therapist to pick up on these minor anomalies in symmetry, posture etc. and correct these before they are repetitively loaded, affect performance, and cause lameness.

b.) having a coach that is dedicated to your horses’ correct way of going, global body mechanics and correct rider biomechanics rather than getting you to jump that big jump, perform movements that neither rider or the horse are ready for.

Cross training also allows for muscle recovery time, allowing the horses body time to repair and replace any damaged tissues.  DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) caused by build up of lactic acid that the body needs to remove and repair of muscle and free radical damage takes around 48 – 96 hours, replacement of muscle glycogen takes around 48 – 72 hours. Other types of exercise can be done within this time just not the same type of repetitive loading and alternative exercise and movement can actually help with these times.

Therefore, we cross train so we can continue to work them just in a different way, to work on different aspects of the scales of training or fitness to prevent excessive overload, to give them a better rounded education and to protect them against injury:

For horses cross training is adding a variety of exercises and training:

• Non-training related exercise – e.g. turn out, which has proven to be protective against lameness
• Varying surfaces – helps with tissue adaptation and also educates the horse in matters of proprioception and coordination which, again, helps to protect against lameness
• Stable exercises – good as a baseline before introducing other types of exercise and training, without the weight of the rider or challenge of movement. They increase flexibility, improve strength and endurance of the muscles and most importantly they switch on correct neuromuscular pathways. These include exercises such as active baited stretches, isometric contractions; ask your equine physical therapist for more and appropriate prescriptive specific exercises that are appropriate at the present time for your individual horse
• Proprioceptive training – poles, bending, inclines, declines, circles, surfaces, again ask your physical therapist about specific proprioceptive training for your horse and their individual stage of development
• Ground work and other work off the horses back – including lunging (video on correct use of lunging coming soon, keep a eye on social media for more info), long reining, straightness training, classical training
• Cross discipline – a dressage horse going on a farm ride, hacking, a happy hacker having a little jump, a show jumper learning piaffe, half pass etc. puts the body into a different range of motion that can be extremely beneficial to aspects of fitness and help the body to avoid injury. The engagement to work on these movements can also help to increase overall suppleness and flexibility and it can always help to be able to make a jump off turn by a stride of leg yield that the horse is used to doing instead of having to perform a sharp turn which can be very damaging to limbs so it can help avoid injury in this way too.
• Psychological benefits of cross training is also surmountable – it helps to prevent sourness and staleness of a particular discipline.

Overall, to prevent injury, for your horses health, fitness, sanity, and increasing their performance in your chosen discipline, cross training is essential for long term benefits.