The importance of Warming up/ Cooling down..

Both warming up and cooling down are an essential part of keeping your horse strong and elastic. A good warm up/cool down will help to prevent and minimise injuries and stiffness.

A good warm up will ensure both horse and rider are physically and mentally ready for their session ahead, it also increases the elasticity of the tendons allowing them to stretch to a greater degree without injury.

In these busy modern times, it is easy to ignore or cut altogether a good 10-minute warm up session before any activity. In some horses, particularly older ones, you may need up to half an hour. As you get to know your horse, you will be able to establish the length of time needed for an optimal warm up.

And a good cool downs objective is to restore a horse's heart rate and other vital signs to a normal range post-exercise, allowing them to recover and the rider to reflect on the session.

How do you warm up/cool down?