Training your show mount!

Good showing mounts can listen to commands with great sensitivity, stand still and have a gentle and relaxed look and outline. To get any horse to become soft and supple yet happy and engaged can take months of practice to perfect - however, getting a horse fit for an event doesn't take very long at all! Often getting a horse fit before a show only takes around 6-10 weeks. The amount of training and practice you'll need depends on you and your horse's experience and levels of training and experience.

Before you start training your horse, you must make sure he is fit. Asking an unfit horse to do showing work and be in a "frame" is unfair on the horses' mental state or his legs and tendons. It is important that you do not under prepare the horse for any event that you may want to enter, as this puts stress on the legs and can cause injury to either horse or rider.

Often letting stabled horses out for a frollick in a paddock with friends is another good way of getting a horse fit. He can run around and stretch his muscles when playing with his buds. If the paddock is on a hill, this can be even better for muscle tone and strength in his back and hind legs! Make sure you have good fencing and adequate water and forage plus another horsey friend to keep him company!

When teaching a horse the world of showing, it is a good idea to take him to a couple of places away from home, as it can be quite scary and stressful for him, and you may not get a quiet, happy, still horse, despite your training at home!

Perhaps you could hire out an arena with friends, and have practice shows away from home, so that he gets used to being worked away from the safety of his paddock.

You could even try taking him in a float to different types of shows (and watch what other riders and horses do) so that he gets used to the noise and excitement of the showgrounds.

Make sure that you make the showground a pleasant place, by feeding him near his float, letting him pick at the grass near the fences, grooming him and making him feel like a star!

Make sure that a show is just as fun for your horse as it is for you!

NOTE: This is also a safety issue - if your horse isn't used to a showground, there could be serious injury to the horse or rider.

Fitness programme:

If your horse has not been working it will take time to get it fit.

Spend weeks 1-3 just walking - like the picture at the very top of the page. Build up the distance until you can ride him at a walk for 2 hours. You can slowly increase hills to strengthen the muscles in the hind quarters and back.

In week 3, introduce trotting and hills to add more muscle tone and strength to the over body of the horse.

By week 5 you can start cantering short distances and begin schooling work, such as trot poles and more bending, (as is shown in the picture on the left.)

In weeks 6-8 you can refine aids, add more lateral work, like sideways riding and work on transitions and increased cantering.

TIP: Cantering makes the heart and lungs work hard so you must bring up the horses' fitness slowly - just like a human athlete. When the horse is properly fit, then he can do the amount of work required at a show.

Now that you know how to prepare a horses' physical fitness for a show, let's move on to Preparing the Rider for an event! (Coming Soon)

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