Fit for the season ahead

It is the beginning of the year, we have made it through the worst of the weather and are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel! Now we want to get planning our event diaries for the year ahead, but first we need to begin to get our horses fit.

We catch up with Ambassador Bonnie Fishburn who gives us her top tips on how she prepares her horses at the start of the season.

1- Keep the work varied so your horse doesn’t get fed up of doing the same thing over and over. For example I like to hack twice, school twice, and either canter work, jump or lunge the other two days and give them the other day off.

2- If the fields are too wet or hard to do your canter work you can do some good steady canter work in an arena by getting up off their backs.

3- Interval training is a really good work out for them.

4- I also like to do continuous steady canter work outs to work on stamina.

5- It is nice for horses to do canter work with a friend if you can sometimes. It’s good for either hot headed horses to get used to cantering in company to chill them out, but equally as good for not such forward thinking/lazy horses to encourage them to be more forwards.

6- I don’t like to hammer my horses on the lanes because I don’t like the concussion on their legs but I do think they need a degree steady trots on the lanes. If you have hills to trot steadily up even better.