Trail Riding for Arena Training

Many years ago, my X husband and I moved some horses for about 15 miles across the mountains, back to the home place. It looked a lot like this beautiful painting by Tim Cox.The horses in the painting are mostly walking, but we trotted and loped ours. Which gave me about 3 hours of time to really study the way they were moving. I gained some insights which have stayed with me throughout the years.

One of the things I noticed is the way their body configures when they have to go up a hill, or down. I saw right away that training in the mountains is as advanced a training as you can imagine. 

I ran across a quick 44 second youtube video, which demonstrates this very clearly. The clip can be found here: https://youtu.be/THm82oH2-JY. It's 44 seconds, but they are well worth watching.
Notice how the horses have to configure themselves to negotiate this very steep trail. Can you see how their hinds must come well under their bellies? How their hocks have to bend sharply, and how loose their joints have to be? Do you notice how their are carrying their heads and necks to achieve this balance?

We spend an inordinate amount of time in the arena training for a hind end that comes up under the body and carries the horse, for hocks that are flexible and elastic, and for feet that are responsive to our requests. 

Now, these horses are not in training, they are simply going down the hill towards the home place. I picked this particular video because it makes my point very clearly. If I were riding any one of these horses, I would hesitate to do much more than blink while going down this mountain. It is extremely steep.

I will say, though, in my arena training, if I could get one of my horses to flex his hocks and shorten his stride as nicely as that, I would be doing cartwheels and back flips.

I will be teaching some clinics this year, and several locations have chosen to explore this area of study with me.

There are simple things you can add to your trail ride which will enhance your arena training invaluably, and your horse won't even know he's being trained. He's just out trail riding. And building strength and coordination for the arena...