Top Tips for Equine Fitness

It’s so important that a horse is fit enough for their job. Like humans, muscular and cardiovascular conditioning is vital for your horse’s performance, as well as for injury prevention.

Sometimes the weather means cantering around fields to increase your horse’s fitness isn’t an option! It’s also important to consider the impact of your horse’s workload on their joints.

Here are our top tips for maintaining fitness when field cantering isn’t an option:

• Interval work in the school. A favourite with many eventers, interval training is a great tool for all riders! The idea is short bursts of intense energy (ie canter), followed by ever-decreasing recovery breaks (walk), to promote fitness. Remember to build up the duration of the canter, and start with short bursts.
• Hillwork, and walk hacks. Going up and down hills, in any pace, not only strengthens muscles but also improves fitness. You can also work within the pace, lengthening and shortening the stride within the trot or canter for example
• Gymnastics and pole work. You certainly don’t need to jump big to help your horse’s fitness – even a raised pole of cavaletti will require increased energy output. Polework allows the horse to work over their body and promote muscular development as well as cardiovascular fitness.
• Lunging and long reining. Although this shouldn’t be done too frequently, it offers another way of building muscles and fitness without the weight of the rider.
• Hire local gallops. Gallops are a great option for those who have them locally – you don’t even need to gallop for them to be effective training!
• Consider using a water treadmill as an alternative way of building fitness without additional strain

As workloads increase, or when firm ground stops training, consider increasing your feeding rate of PharmaQuin for additional joint support. Learn more here.

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Posted on 10th May, 2024.