Adding a walk only day into the routine

[Lunabear1988]

I’m thinking about adding a “walk only day” to my young horses routine. I know everyone always sings praises of the value of good walk work so I figured why not dedicate a day each week to it?

I have a coming 5 year old (officially 5 in June) horse. His walk isn’t great. He can be prone to being really behind the leg or tense at the walk. So getting a swinging and marching walk is always a goal. I find that the days I’ve done walk work only (or warmed him up on the lunge then cooled out by walking in saddle) that he really starts to loosen up.

We are stuck indoors for a bit due to ice and snow. I think doing this in the field and trail would be great but will have to be in the spring/summer. I’d love any ideas for walk only exercises or hear if anyone else does any walk only work with their young horses.

[Scribbler]

The issue here is warmup not quality of walk per se. IMHO many horses need more and slower warmup than we expect. If they are sluggish they need warmup and if they are hot often they need more warmup to stop rushing and being tense.

So your horse is not warmed up until he can give you a swinging forward walk.

It’s worth looking into subtleties of saddle and girth and chiro to see if he’s starting with a slight discomfort he works out of.

I find simple lateral work at work can help them start using their hind end.

[Nous]

I second the simple lateral work, turns on the forehand, turns on the haunches, use the square (or diamond) exercise, try to make sure he doesn’t lose impulsion on the turn. Leg yield is also good. Add in circles within his own length. Transitions between medium walk and medium walk on the long rein. Transitions to halt, rein back, forward in the walk.

Impulsion is the key, don’t lose it!

ETA: I think it was Baucher who was reputed to be able to school only at the walk, and by the time he progressed to trot and canter all the moves were confirmed an easy for the horse.

.

[Badger]

The walk can easily be screwed up. You might want to wait to do the walk-only work out in the field or on the trail since you are wanting to create more march. It’d be ideal if he had a big-strided trail buddy.

[atr]

I’m a big fan of a walk day. It changes the expectations for the horse–they can find it a little disconcerting at first, I think, but it allows you to focus on accuracy without having to worry about anything else. You do need to be able to recognize if there is any tendency towards laterality and nip that in the bud promptly, however, but that’s where the lateral work can come into play.

Yes to lateral work, and extended walk and free walk and medium walk and crisp transitions. Stay far away from collected, keep the forward and impulsion going. Remember it can be quite hard work for them.

[sascha]

I do this as required by my health, my horse’s health (allergies so summer can suck), how hard we’ve worked over the past few days, etc. Sometimes it will be a hack (weather, ground conditions permitting) or just a loose rein walk in the arena. Most times it’s a full walk warm up and cool down, but we skip the sandwich filling of trot and canter work.

My personal routine is a few laps of loose rein walk in either direction followed by crossing the width of arena back and forth with a half pirouette every time we approach the long side. Next is the same but with walking turns on the forehand approaching each long side. Then, we continue with walking turns on the forehand with the opposite bend. :o (no, it’s not easy, but boy, it sets up the horse for halfpass) Next is leg yielding across the arena. Next is half pass across the arena, possibly throwing in a full walk pirouette or counter bent volte here and there depending on whether a refresher about remaining responsive to “more haunches please” and “more shoulders please” is needed. Finally, shortening and lengthening the walk (more exaggerated than the amount your needed for the half pirouettes), maybe some half step sets, and then ‘cool out’ on a loose rein for several laps of the arena each way.

Working on all this stuff in walk has so many benefits for both horse and rider. None of the exercises above are beyond a 5yo. Like everything else, they will get better in time, but most importantly, they will make all your other work better. The more you concentrate on your position and skills, the more improvement you’ll get in all your work.

[Lunabear1988]

The more walk we do the better IMO. When I ride alone I do a lot of walking at the beginning of the warm up regardless. Lessons vary. Right now I’ve been including my warm up in the lesson just because he’s young and I don’t want to overdo the ride time. But my Dressage instructor is flexible about such.

Leg yield in walk is really helpful. He knows shoulder fore, Shoulder In and Haunches In, Tof and Toh. But at this stage I have to be careful at the walk in what I ask.

Maybe doing like what I did yesterday would work well. Warm up on the lunge and finish out at walk.

Everything other ride as normal, including pole work.

I guess I see it is not just the physical aspect but mental. I’m not talking about drilling the walk more a low-key ride that hopefully is beneficial as well. I like Nous and Atr’s suggestions a lot!

[Lunabear1988]

Thank you for such an in depth description of your routine. Very helpful. And yes, during these “walk only rides” it’s a lot of loose rein work for most of it. I think that’s important for him right now, especially warming up.

[Lunabear1988]

In his normal walk I haven’t seen a lateral tendency but I did do a video critique with a judge that I had worked with a few times. She did note but during shoulder fore he almost wanted to get lateral. Now that is when he was first learning (and yes he’s in training too ) so maybe it was just a mistake. But I’m always cautious of that now.

So I’m thinking of lots of loose rein, relaxed but forward walk with some mindful lateral work mixed in.
I need to start videoing more of my rides.

[joiedevie99]

For us, walk day replaces hack day when it is too gross to go outside. It’s mostly just marching forward on a long rein and relaxing for 45 minutes. The only ‘work’ is following the weight aids to turn and make shapes. Some of them definitely need to do a bit more to keep their energy with the rider - lots of transitions, some halts, some lateral work, etc.

[Lunabear1988]

Yeah that’s kind of along the lines of what I’m thinking. Something relaxing for mind and body. But hopefully will help in the long run.

[BrokenArrow]

I’ve been doing this, but I incorporate poles into the session for the horses who can’t go for a walk down the road.

Pinterest has actually been a good source of inspiration for finding different patterns and exercises for pole work. I find it keeps them more interested, especially when their walk is a bit average to begin with. Once the walk is riding better then I start adding in some lateral work.

[Lunabear1988]

He loves poles!

[hybriseris]

I love walks days for many of the reasons already stated. I’ll add I find them good for me too, because it allows me to concentrate on my position while not managing a thousand other things at a faster pace. Are my shoulders back, elbows and hands following? Am I encouraging a nice, swinging walk with my seat? I find the walk a great pace to orient myself back in to being plugged in to the little things about my ride.

[starsandsun]

My walk only routine consists of first coming into connection with my horse’s hind legs, so i feel the swing that moves me side to side as he steps foward and under me … one and two and one and two and one and two. Once the rhythm is clear for me, then I focus on 30 steps of just a medium walk, and then try to slow down my movement so we do 30 steps of slower, then even slower, then quicker, quicker, and quickest - each for 30 steps. Up and down - 4 different ‘speeds’. My horse really gets in to it, starts thinking, and becomes ever so responsive through his back. Hope this idea is clear, and that it helps!

[pluvinel]

@Lunabear1988

His walk isn’t great. He can be prone to being really behind the leg or tense at the walk. So getting a swinging and marching walk is always a goal.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so here is Nuno Oliveira to show a “walk day”.

Nuno OLiveira on a Lippizan

This sort of work would also address “behind the leg” since you cannot do this if the horse is not listening. However…this also places great responsibility on the rider not to nag the horse or have legs with a death grip.

The video is almost 12 minutes long, and this is fairly intense work, even when it is all at the walk. You don’t need to do the work for along time…instead you can do a few minutes, then walk-on on a loose rein as a reward.

I had a French trainer say that “longitudinal engagement comes from lateral engagement.”

[eightpondfarm]

Walk-training is my jam.

My beauty and i trained our entire first year only at a walk. Even-still, 2/3 of our training is still at a walk. She can bend or straighten her body upon just an ask to the right and we are working on the left. Her curl to the left takes a little bit longer, (like about two strides) Her neck is bendy enough but her body isn’t quite full-banana going left, at least not on first ask…yet. She can walk a straight line down the center or quarterline or diagonal, she can full stop and walk-off from stop is a bright full walk unless otherwise asked. You know what else she can do? Walk (with her nose to the rail, not free in the center of ring yet) fully sideways (a trick we learned on the ground and she can do under saddle now too!) So much we learned together … at a walk. We’re dabbling in collection…
We don’t canter yet.

[AlexA]

I’ve always liked going back to basics, especially with young horses, and doing it at the walk really helps avoid building tension or at least catching it as it builds and seeing where your horse will have a tendency to hold it. I always do at least one day of just walking even with my older horse and I start every ride with about 20 minutes of walk, some of it in hand. And walking doesn’t have to be boring, just going in circles. In fact, it shouldn’t be; you still want it to be a good march and engage the back. There are many programs out there to follow if you don’t have a system you already do with young horses, or those coming back into work, or horses that might be new to you and you want to see where the gaps in their education are. I’ve been riding with the new RideiQ app for the past few months and there are a couple of systematic programs for young horses to follow in it, and several lessons for walk exercises. I’ve ridden several of these now and they’ve been incredibly helpful in keeping me consistent and riding correctly. Looks like I can only post one image at a time so I’ll do that.

[AlexA]

[AlexA]