Posted by Mona

Now that the weather is nice again and the kids are out of school I finally have time to start riding again. A while back I wrote an article titled , Walk Your Horse Like a Dog. This article talks about the benefits of walking your horse by halter and lead and how it can improve your relationship with your horse.

I walked my horse the other day and realized how ‘walking your horse like a dog’ can help me get back into shape as well. If horse could talk I bet they would have many complaints to give to out of shape riders that just hope on their back after months out of the saddle. If you have ever carried a child that doesn’t offer any sort of help in holding themselves up you know what a horse goes through when you are out of shape. We also sometimes expect our out-of-shape horses to take on an out-of-shape rider and wonder “why is she acting up today?”.

The other day after I had done some ground worth with my horse we went for a nice fast paced walk around the block. Not only did we take a walk, we jogged up a hill. The hill was not steep but it was enough to make my legs burn a little. We actually ended up only jogging up part of the hill but it was still good exercise.

We had a good walk and I planned to do it a few times before we get back into heavy riding. A horse that can trust you on the ground will be more likely to trust you when you are on their back.