Winter Riding (-Not-)

It's winter time. And it's been a cold, nasty, snow filled bugger. We are only 3 weeks into it and already we've had 2 named storms travel our country from west to east, dumping snow and filling the air with cold temperatures.

In these conditions it's pretty hard to maintain your horse's conditioning. We might have a few days of warm weather in which we could ride. But if your life is anything close to mine, there are many other things that need taken care of during those precious days, which put my horses on the back of the list.

Winter time riding is harder. We have to layer the clothes on. The ground is frozen, making some of the more intensive training difficult on the ponies (I hate turning lope circles on frozen ground). A hard workout is impossible. Pony gets sweated up, and then it takes hours to cool him off and get him dried out.

Even if you have a heated barn, you still face winter time challenges. Clipping and then rugging, slick and icy walk ways to and from the arena, etc, etc.

About 5 years ago, the frustration of on and off winter riding got the best of me, and I gave up. I turned all the horses out December 1st, and swore I wouldn't ride them again till March 1st. I knew from my time as a cowboy, both on the ranch and in the feedyard, that horses benefit greatly from an extended turn out. On the ranch, we often took some of the older horses and turned them out on summer pasture, so we could concentrate on the young ones, who needed the training. At the feedyard, we had the horses in 2 month rotations, 2 months in and working, 2 months out and resting. And each and every time, when those horses came back from turn out, they were better, both mentally and physically, than they were at the time of turn out.

The horses catching some sun in my arena

I don't actually have a turn out pasture anymore, some lonely spot way up in the mountains, to which you bump along in a 4 wheel drive truck and check the water once a week. But I can still turn them out. I pull the shoes off the ones that can stand to go with out shoes, worm everyone, and close the corrals. I only feed once a day, in a big feed bunk, and don't even catch them or brush them. They are "turned out", on vacation, if you will.

I've done this every year for the last 5 years. And I've enjoyed my own vacations. Guilt free winter outings, winter chore days, and small family vacations. It's amazing.

Right until the first nice week in January. The weather man is telling us how "unseasonably warm and pleasant the whole upcoming week" will be, and I start going stir crazy. There's only so much catching up a person wants to do, and my kids sure don't want to see me for the whole week, especially not a unseasonably warm one.

Personally, I take that week to start the colt. And the next warm week will have more riding for him. He's not in work anyways, so there's no reason to give him a vacation. The colt will be the only one in danger of doing any work from December to March. Or, I might take some no stirrup lungeline lessons from a trainer friend. My kids my not want to putz around with "Grandma", but my fellow horse trainer is glad to get to teach a lesson on  a beautiful winter day. One winter, I was visiting friends, and I got to ride a dressage schoolmaster. That was a day to remember, an opportunity presented only because I elected not to ride my own for the day. 

Soon enough March 1st rolls around, and I'm itching to go. 
And my horses are as well.