Walking your horse - Why should we be doing more of it?

I am often encouraging my clients to walk their horses more 🐴

Might sound a little boring to some of you, but walk is a wonderful pace and has so many benefits for your horse 👍🏻

It’s also something you can easily do in-hand, so a suitable exercise for your youngsters, oldies or those recovering from injury

But why do I recommend walking more and what are the benefits❓

The walk is a 4 beat gait with no moment of suspension (this means there is always at least one foot on the ground, unlike in the trot, canter and gallop when there is a moment where the horse has no feet on the ground during the pace)

Your walk should have an even and regular beat. 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4 and so on.

It’s useful to learn to listen to your horse’s footfalls when they walk, whether you are leading, riding or long reining them as an uneven beat could indicate an issue such a lameness 😐

Because of the lack of suspension in the walk the forces generated for each step must be by active muscle contraction and effort on the horse’s part 💪🏻

This is one of the reasons a horse will often want to trot or canter up a hill instead of walk, as walking is more challenging 🥵

I like to recommend having a ‘Walk day’ or using more walk in your sessions as walk is the lowest intensity gait but you can still achieve so much in this pace.

It’s also great for your horse’s mental health 😌

Benefits of walking your horse include:

▪️Improves circulation

▪️Facilitates and maintains proper bone and hoof development

▪️Stimulates the production of synovial fluid in the joints

▪️Loosens up the joints

▪️Loosens the back, and encourages lateral swing in the body

▪️Allows your horse to gradually gain strength with minimum stress to the joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments (more likely to avoid injury)

▪️Gently improves fitness and endurance

▪️Encourages your horse to stretch and relax

▪️Will improve your work at the faster paces

🔴Not to mention:

▪️Bonding time

▪️Confidence building

🔴But just because you are walking, doesn’t mean your session has to be boring or lacking purpose

There are lots of things you can do during your walk session to ‘spice’ it up and get the maximum benefit for your horse, here are a few ideas you can try:

▪️Walking up hills

▪️Walking down hills

▪️Walking over poles

▪️Shorten the walk

▪️Lengthen the walk

▪️Steps of Shoulder In

▪️Steps of Haunches In

▪️Steps of Leg yield

▪️Serpentines

▪️Walking over raised poles

▪️Walk through water

▪️Walk through long grass

(The last 3 on the list will encourage your horse to lift their feet higher and engage their core and stabilising muscles even more)

I hope this post encourages some of you to get out and do more walking with your horses 🐴

Whatever horse or pony you have, if they are able, I encourage you to get out there and have some low intensity fun 😀