How much exercise is needed for a horse?
Horses are natural athletes, and need enough exercise to keep themselves mentally and physically healthy. Here in Australia we’re fortunate in that many of our horses, especially pleasure horses, either live in paddocks or spend enough regular time in them to exercise themselves. Indeed, pleasure horses that are ridden consistently often don’t need much more exercise in between rides than that. However, performance horses, and horses that are kept in stables or small yards, do need a proper horse exercise schedule. The question is…how often should you exercise a horse to keep it fit and healthy?
Horse Exercise Frequency: How Often Should You Train Your Horse?
As mentioned, horses that can spend time running around in large paddocks generally don’t require as much exercise, or training, as those confined to small yards and stables. Even performance horses…
However, if you do expect your horse to do things that require fitness and toughness, it will need an exercise regime to suit, even if it does live in a paddock. That means exercising and training it more often, perhaps nearly every day.
How Many Times A Week Should A Horse Be Exercised?
Fundamentally – an ideal horse exercise schedule is one that will get, and keep, your horse’s fitness level where it needs to be to perform the activities required of it. The more strenuous these are, the fitter the horse needs to be, and the more exercise it requires. How intense (light, heavy) this work is, and how often you do it, likewise, depends on how fit the horse needs to be.
What’s A Good Horse Workout Routine?
Racehorses, polo ponies, endurance horses, eventers etc must be super fit and are often worked as often as 5 – 6 days a week. Their exercise routines invariably include plenty of conditioning work to build up fitness levels. An endurance horse for example may do several hours of conditioning exercise almost every day, especially as their fitness increases.
If you’re training your horse for dressage or hacking, expect to have to exercise it at least 4 – 5 days a week. Half your daily exercise time will be spent working on paces, transitions, collection, and so on. The other half will be spent on conditioning work because these horses also need to be fit to perform properly.
A pleasure hack or child’s pony that lives in a paddock on the other hand will probably do fine with just normal regular riding several times a week.
How Often And How Long Should You Exercise A Horse?
When working out an appropriate ‘horse workout routine’, or exercise schedule there are a number of factors to consider, including the horse’s:
- Lifestyle,
- Level of fitness,
- Age,
- Health,
- Breed, and
- The type of work you expect it to do.
For instance – if your horse is young (under 6 years of age) it still has an immature skeleton. Therefore, although it can be exercised regularly, the intensity of the exercise matters. Ideally, it shouldn’t be exercised as heavily as a fully mature horse, or at least not if you want it to have a long performance career!
Likewise, an arthritic horse will benefit from regular light exercise but shouldn’t be expected to work as hard as a sound horse.
Some breeds, and many ponies, may need more exercise than other breeds to keep them at the same level of fitness and health.
Horses that require a high fitness level – racehorses, endurance horses, eventers – must be exercised a lot more than a pleasure hack or child’s leading rein pony. However, many children do ride their ponies for half an hour or more after school, and for several hours on weekends. Particularly if it lives with them…
And so on…
How Often Should You Exercise A Horse Without A Break?
All professional trainers understand the importance of giving a horse in training regular time off. In many cases, this is at least one day a week, often immediately after a competition. This allows the horse to recover physically and mentally. You should also know when your horse has done enough. Excessive sweating, high heart rate, and laboured breathing are all signs of overexertion and indicate the horse needs a break.
Successful trainers also know it’s important to vary the exercise. Your horse can get bored and either switch off or find ways to avoid working properly. They can successfully incorporate elements of training into other activities if necessary. For example, a dressage rider may ask their horse to side-pass, shoulder in and out, do regular transitions, and lengthen and shorten stride whilst on a trail ride.
So – How Often Should You Exercise A Horse?
The reality is that, although most horses will benefit from getting at least 20 – 30 minutes of exercise 3 or 4 times a week. Remember though, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question of how long should you exercise a horse. Some horses live in conditions where they can exercise themselves. Others live in small yards or stables and must be regularly exercised. High performance equine athletes need more intense exercise, more often, than pleasure hacks. An active pony club mount needs more exercise than a child’s leading rein pony. And so on… The best answer is that you should:
- Determine what you want your horse or pony to do,
- Work out how fit it needs to be to do it,
- Get advice about what exercise, and how much, will achieve that
Then formulate your horse exercise schedule.
