Show Warmup for Hot Horses

[ClassyJumper]

Curious how others handle their warmup before a test with your hotter horses?

At shows my mare gets hot (much more so than at home). In general, I think it will resolve itself with more exposure but until then… how would you handle warmup?

My thought was less is more, lots of walking, a bit of trot and canter, and then more walking. Which worked great in warmup and thought I was good to go… and then I got into my test and all hell broke loose.

How do you test your brakes, when transitions just jazz them up?

So many questions, if anyone has been there and figured out something that worked for their horse I would love suggestions!

[eightpondfarm]

Can you enter a few tests, rent a stall for each, and just not ride.

[B-burg_Dressage]

When we were really really hot (like couldn’t even walk without jigging and wigging out) I would just go to trotting lots of figures. Let him settle into something that he knew and was confident with. Within those figures I’d transition down (either in pace or actual gait depending) and let him go again when he gave me the slight response I wanted. Basically, an overdone half-halt. Once that was a little more established I would be able to ask for more and less, but a lot more less than more.

Made sure to get at least one canter transition each direction to theoretically get the explosive one out of the way. Did not spend much time in canter at all–just enough to know it wasn’t going to be a run.

Eventually hopefully get him to where I can walk him and stick with the confidence building figures. Doing the big half halts during the walk as well.

Now that he’s a lot more reasonable I do a TON of walk work at the beginning, still testing those half halts. Let him be underwhelming in all his work. Not behind my leg (because that’s impossible in public, lol), but a smaller trot than what is going to win. Going for less flash and keeping him well below his ability level. I never ask for mediums in warm-up. I know they’ll be there when I let him. Just get him to solid basics listening and trust the training for the actual test.

I think the biggest things are constantly testing those half halts from the get-go in all gaits and keeping all the work within his comfort zone.

And we’ve hit the trails with a very calm, confident buddy. I think good ole fashioned tired from a long, hilly walk has helped him realize that going out in public and being an energizer bunny can backfire after four miles.

Good luck. It can be so disheartening to have an amazing horse at home and have him/her lose their marbles in public. But if you play it right, it will get better eventually.

We’ve gone from rearing and screaming to a very solid citizen who now gets comments about asking for more instead of “tense and rushed”. Just took a couple years and the attitude of every outing just being about making it a better experience for him than that time before.

[Alpha_Mare]

Along the lines of the others - try to do figures that are soothing. A figure 8 is a really good one. Practice it at home so that it’s familiar. You can do all your transitions within the figure 8. There is something about the change of direction that helps keep their attention. Some horses get more ‘wound up’ once you start working with them so agree with the others to have a lot of walk work.

[Feathered_Feet]

With really hot horses, I’ve had the best success in tests by using time + wearing them out enough. This means getting to the show venue the day before (and either renting a stall or trailering back and forth). Lunging + riding the day before to let them get the wiggles out and see the ring. The day off, same thing if needed: lunge + ride. Eventually you can skip the second day lunging, and maybe eventually also the first day lunging.

During the day-of warmup, once you’re in the tack, if they are still hot, you have two approaches. Whichever works will depend on the horse.

• Option 1: lots of nice, rhythmic trotting to bore them into relaxation. I think it was Kyra Kyrklund who has a “valium” exercise that is basically the same half-circle-back-to-the-track on repeat until they settle. Some horses like this exercise as Option 2 can get them even more wound up.
• Option 2: keep them busy with lots of transitions, shoulder-in, etc. Don’t go more than three strides without asking for something. Some horses need this option as Option 1 leads to “idle hands,” as it were, which leads to trouble.

As a word of encouragement, it does get better. I used to have a very hot horse at shows who is now really settling into the work. For the first time, this year, I can take her off the trailer (admittedly, to venues she has seen before) and just get on and ride (she still likes a day-before warmup in the ring, though, just to get a look at where the flowers are, etc.). But a lot of young horses really do just need to MOVE at more than a walk to get the wiggles out and release the mental tension.

[DMK]

I ride a fjord, so you wouldn’t think this is my problem, but he gets really UP and strong in a ring with other horses… and he has plenty of go without this problem! He has tons of exposure to dressage shows and CDEs, but a couple things make this a challenge: 1. all rides at home are alone, 2. CDEs don’t deal with the same kind of ring traffic because it is so dangerous, 3. he spends a lot more time in curb bits than snaffles, I joke that showing him in a snaffle is like bringing a knife to a bazooka fight… and 4. due to his main job as a CDE pony, he is very, very, very fit.

so, yeah… not a lot of fun for me if he gets hot and bothered by the warm up ring.

It took me a few seasons to figure this out, but this year, after a disaster of a start this season (due to a few things, but the warm up traffic was the last straw), I rethought my approach. Now I ground drive him, effectively lunging, but I bring my driving saddle and ground driving lines and work him in the lunge area with side reins. As a driver I have a little more experience with ground driving, but is is a skill worth learning for everyone. I pretty much do my warm up ride, except for lateral work. Then we go back to the trailer, tack up and change and I get to the warm up ring 10-15 minutes before my test. I practice a few gaits, do just enough lateral work to let us both know it’s there and then I usually leave the warm up ring with at least 5 minutes to spare and go work on trot halts and walk pirouettes/turn on the haunches.

It’s made a HUGE difference in our scores, like the very first show we increased the score by almost 18 points. Like I said, there were a lot of issues in the first show, but he truly laid down on of the nicest tests he ever had done and got the high score 2nd level AA award for the show. We did one more show and his scores were within a point of his first show, made even more amazing by the fact I could barely hold the right rein anymore (torn rotator cuff, now just repaired tyvm… did I mention he is strong?)

So it might be worth playing around with a similar approach, although to clarify, I don’t mean LTD, but real work, lots of upward and downward transitions and lots of volte changes of directions. It is tiring, but it is tiring because it is mentally challenging and they have to pay attention to you, like they should be doing in the warm up ring…

[joiedevie99]

@Alpha_Mare

A figure 8 is a really good one.

Agreed. You can get so much done on a figure 8. I like to ride the haunches to the outside on the outside half of each circle, and then straighten, change direction, and leg yield out after the change of direction before stopping the shoulders and riding the haunches out. They eventually give in to the suppleness that the exercise requires.

Other than that, get there as many days early as you can, and show as often as you can. If you are worried about having enough in the tank for the test, get on early AM and school, then put the horse away. Then get on again 20 minutes before your ride time for a lighter warm-up.

If the horse is hot on the ground too, I’d check out Tristan Tucker’s groundwork. The basic patterns really help some of the hot ones to feel secure and get grounded in new surroundings.

[Janet]

I have had my best luck with a warmup that keeps her working, both mentally and physically. One of my go-to exercises, at both trot and canter, is relatively tight-radius serpentines, sometimes with transitions back to walk on each change of direction, and sometimes through a trot.

[Salty]

I had one who needed a lot of hand walking, another who did best with a long, slow canter in 2 point, and a third who relaxed well with long & low. All my horses benefitted greatly from just going to shows–any shows–and hanging out. I never had one who thought that quick transitions & quick changes of bend were relaxing, but I can imagine a horse like that.

Just experiment and see what works.

[mvp]

Oy, vey, with the hot ones, it’s very individual to the horse… and the level of education you have given it at the time.

My goal is to have the horse know that when I get on (heck, when I pull it out of the stall), it’s Business. So to me, the rider or handler’s job for all of them-- green or made-- is to give the horse some tasks and a job that he can get done and feel secure in, and that you, as a handler/rider/horseman can get him to get done.

My current mare has taught me a lot about how to do this with a horse because she’s sensitive, suspicious and has no filter. Or, rather, that is who she is when she’s off the clock. On the clock, at this point, she’s capable of great focus and she’s beginning to do me favors in the ring; she sometimes gives me better performance than I rode her for.

But it took me a long time. I started with taking her to shows and events and, getting my best horsemanship on, and never, ever skipping a step. So if her first job was to learn how to chill out in a stall at a show, we arrived in the PM, set up and I put her in her stall for the night. I didn’t mean to do it this way, but letting her discover that that 12’ x 12’ space was “the same, always” and had food and water in it, just like other stalls she had been in, worked great!

When we hand walked, she went in a rope halter with a long rope and was expected to keep a loop in the rope. We might do some ground work or we might hand graze, as her mind required. She was allowed to do whatever made her relaxed and focused.

Same for schooling rides and for being long-lined in the corner of a big schooling area or empty arena.

At home, I am also the rider that spends some time allowing a horse to “work through” some tension they might have when they don’t understand a training request. I want them to mentally hang in there so that they learn that the safest place for them to always be is right with their rider. This sounds abstract, but I mention it because I think it goes a long way to teaching a hot horse to keep their focus when they meet the chaos of the horse show.

In short, I look for the horse to be mentally relaxed and able to listen, but also very sure that focusing on their rider is where the peace and safety are. I grew up riding hunters, so sometimes my goal for a horse’s experience is about relaxation. But I have also learned from dressage world (and some Vaquero-style horsemen) how to teach horses focus on a job as a way to help them get out of their emotions. But I change these up based on what the horse is showing me at the time and which one-- the horse given a job to do, or a horse left peacefully alone-- will bring relaxation next.

[Applecore1]

I am drawn like fly to honey to hot sensitive horses. I haven’t learned to select calmer ones, but I have learned a lot of coping strategies, lol! Every horse will have a slightly different strategy based on what makes them hot. I find its a trial and error a bit with each horse as you get them more experience and build their confidence. Some things you might consider in your trial and error journey.

1. Enter tests that are easy for them - you want them to be very confident in their work, because it will be harder for them when they get stressed.

2. Fly bonnets with noise-reducing material over the ears (which are legal, ear plugs are NOT legal in USEF dressage shows)

3. UlcerGuard/GastroGuard from the day before traveling to the show. Consider scoping stomach if there are other ulcer signs, like not eating well at shows or a change in temperment.

4. I like to lunge my current hot mare when I get to the show grounds, then letter her chill and munch hay for an hour or two before getting on. I don’t like to lunge right before mounting because it tends to wind her up, whereas the edge has come off an hour afterward as they settle.

5. I always ride twice the first day of the show - either hack and then show, or two classes. They need miles, plus being a bit tired makes them a little calmer. In her younger wilder years, I would ride twice for the first two days.

6. Go on easy fun trips to new places, like a walking trail ride, with no pressure at all and home within a few hours. It makes the whole trailer->new environment process a lot easier for them!

7. In pre-show warm up, I like to have taken the edge off already and just do my same predicable warm up I do at home. Trotting until settled, canter each way. My current horse used to always have a buck to get out in the canter trans - it’s best to know that and get it over with in the warm up! I do a shorter 25-30min warm up with fairly consistent work/not too many breaks, but that’s what I do at home and keeps me from thinking too hard. Predictability can help reduce a horse’s stress too! (I’m totally stealing the idea of repetitive figures mentioned earlier in the thread as well, that makes a lot of sense!)

8. Whatever reduces your stress! If you find yourself getting nervous or stressed, it may help to have a trainer to ride the horse for a show - or even the first day, then you show the second day.

9. Lots of hand walking and calming ground work (I do the exact same routine - hand or leg on side, turn haunches away until calm and head comes down - whenever my horse gets nervous on the ground or in the saddle). I also took bits from Tristan Evans’ work as well.

Someone mentioned ground driving, but I believe at USEF recognized dressage shows you are limited to one lunge line and, if you wish, side reins (see rule on page 33 here: https://www.usef.org/forms-pubs/F3p8pgrWgAo/dr-dressage-division)

[J-Lu]

What @mvp said.

That said, I tried to show my super hot 4-6 year old in dressage. I’d get there at the crack of dawn, longe him in the ring, walk him a zillion times past the judge’s stand, feed him carrots and pet him while standing on the judges stand, walk him by the flowers, etc. Come class time, do a good warm up. Well, the light would shift and the flowers and letters looked different, so did the judge’s stand, etc. People would be around the arena. He became a apooking ball of tension.

I ended up taking him (no lie) to a bunch of QH shows with my QH friend. Those shows are absolutely chaos and I re-wrote the local chapters rules to allow dressage saddles in the English classes. He had exposure to everything and went to the same venues. I mean, he had exposure to a show of horseback shooting in the adjacent arena, ponies with carts in his classes, kids riding big-wheels in the warm-up, people cooking out and flying flags right next to the ring, etc. SOOOO much more chaotic than a dressage show!! I have to say that I had to deal with the horse that showed up that day. He didn’t necessarily get calmer.

Age and experience has helped him (and me) deal with his reactivity. I think what may have helped the most was 1) taking him here, there and everywhere regularly and 2) a rather bottomless wallet to throw away class fees with until he he could deal being in his skin better.

[mvp]

@J-Lu

I ended up taking him (no lie) to a bunch of QH shows with my QH friend. Those shows are absolutely chaos and I re-wrote the local chapters rules to allow dressage saddles in the English classes. He had exposure to everything and went to the same venues. I mean, he had exposure to a show of horseback shooting in the adjacent arena, ponies with carts in his classes, kids riding big-wheels in the warm-up, people cooking out and flying flags right next to the ring, etc. SOOOO much more chaotic than a dressage show!! I have to say that I had to deal with the horse that showed up that day. He didn’t necessarily get calmer.

Age and experience has helped him (and me) deal with his reactivity. I think what may have helped the most was 1) taking him here, there and everywhere regularly and 2) a rather bottomless wallet to throw away class fees with until he he could deal being in his skin better.

Oh, yeah. I took mine to a local afternoon-to-night barrel race. I did have Western tack for her, but we were clearly out of place. But it was free and a fantastic training experience.

She learned that all the other horses tie to a trailer indefinitely. At some point, you might as well join them.

She learned that strange horses can and will stand inside your personal bubble. When you put your ears back at him, he won’t care. And then another one will be too close and another and another.

Same for walking or riding. The Western horses have no sense of space, even less than in a jumper warm-up ring. But if you stay under your rider and go where she’s putting her eyes, you’ll be all right.

There will be kids in a playpen by the office, where you will have to stand at the end of your lead rope while we sign a release form. You will smell and see cattle; maybe some goats. The little boys dragged along with their family will be playing hide-and-seek, or riding around on scooters.

All of this is none of a horse’s business. Their rider or handler is their only business.

The more times and places you can go make that point, preferably for free, the better. But you do have to choose a job that a horse can succeed at.

I also look for cheap ways to go to multi-day shows. These opportunities are getting harder and harder to find. But there’s something really great about letting a horse come out of his stall to go to work twice a day as he’s getting both more familiar and more tired at the same time. It’s magical the way they come out Sunday morning making much, much better decisions than they did on Tuesday afternoon.

[outerbanks77]

The English/Western schooling/local type shows around here are super cheap. Usually no grounds fee and $5-10 per class. So you can enter one halter class and then bum around for as long as you’d like, ride in the warmup or whatever. Let them see the minis pulling carts, the kids in the costume class and all that.

For the OP - partly I think it’s just experimenting with what works for your horse. My appendix mare seems to bottle up adrenaline that can only be unleashed by lunging. Then when it’s out, she’s OK. If she doesn’t chance to get the adrenaline out, she can seem OK, and then explode suddenly (manifested as rearing Nice and HIGH and her case). I rode through that at a clinic and it was not pretty. She is always better the second day though, and seems to be settling a bit with age as well (8 this year).

[Edre]

Realistically the answer to this is going to depend on the brain:

Some hot horses will settle down with repetition, given time to decompress, and some exposure to the environment (but may get anxious if you “over ask” them). Others will, left to their own devices, just get more and more wound up.

If you’re working with the first, think of it as some hand-holding. You’re walking along with them until they wrap their head around what’s happening. Lots of walking, low-stress exercises that work on just fundamental correctness starting with relaxation. One concept is to avoid adding more energy than you’re prepared to work with: if doing more work in the trot and canter generates more engine and more energy than you’re looking to manage at the moment, warm ups that are (for example) lighter in the canter work or lighter in the complex movements that may introduce more energy/electricity than you’re looking to generate, is reasonable and often wise.

On the other hand if you’re dealing with the horse that will overthink on their own, you may need to look at riding every step for a while. Nothing needs to be terrifically complex and many of the concepts and exercises that apply to the first type of horse will be effective here, it’s just the nature of this second type of horse that where with the first you may want to have a good walk and let them process things on their own time (though still going correctly/in the contact, responsive to the aids) this second type of horse you may never want to give so much time to. Don’t be overbearing and don’t micromanage, but oftentimes the nature of working through movements can both take the edge of the energy off a bit, and also help them decompress as you do this work and nothing worth being especially reactive to occurs in the process. Rather than work on warm up movements as “individual movements” you’re looking at piecing things together: a shoulder in setting up into doing a circle and a half of a 10m circle which sets up into a leg yield back to the track to change direction, for example. It’s a sequence of movements and you can deviate/add in/subtract as your horse feels capable/willing, but the point is that you’re putting the pieces together to keep their feet (and their mind) busy.

Back when I was showing more extensively my horse was more the former. My trainer’s horse was very much the latter. They were both clever, willing types but mine would come in hot and reactive and need to decompress before any big asks because asking while he was already in the rafters was just going to cause us to spiral. Her horse would come in hot (more spooky/reactive hot) and then need his hand to be held throughout the warmup by just keeping his mind and his body busy until the job was done.

[beowulf]

I used to be the person that had a bunch of horses with “special warmups”. Most of these horses were naturally hot or sensitive and working on transitions and changes of bend to always keep them moving kept them occupied. So I’d arrive a bit earlier than I needed to and work them.

I started to think I was going about this wrong: these horses were, for the most part, being reactive to the environment – and I wasn’t giving them time to process it by putting their nose to the grindstone immediately.

So I started taking them to gymkhana classes and hunter paces, to just give them the exposure to the show in a laid back environment where they could hang out by the trailer and eat as much hay and grass as they wanted. Now going to shows is a non-event and they are so much more relaxed and responsive in the ring.

There is one schooling show local to me that if a horse can go to and warm up and ride the test quietly, they are prepared for anything show-wise. I always make that the destination show to attend before a recognized event – it is pure chaos, with Thelwell ponies with their own grass-munching agenda and 12 y/os who can’t steer too well, to terrified re-riders on plunky drafts, to determined pony clubbers on their seasoned thoroughbreds… the warm up ring is practically a mosh-pit and if your horse does well there, nothing from a show perspective will rattle their confidence.

[DMK]

Damn it, and I even asked! Oh well, lunging it is.

[xQHDQ]

Funny you should ask this as I just had a show this weekend and solidified my warm-up routine.
First, hand walk around wherever I can - in the actually show ring is best but just around the warm-up has worked. No getting on at the trailer and going right into the warm-up. I also use the TRT method of circling around me.
Second, when I get on, I keep him long and low and as relaxed as possible. I do a lot of walk and will repeat the TRT circles as needed. Then I trot and canter, starting in small (no more than 20m) before moving into more space. Only towards the end of my warm-up will I pick him up a little. I don’t drill a lot of the movements - just a few that I know can be an issue. The goal is to keep him relaxed.
Third, when I go around the perimeter, I go back to low (maybe not as long) and relaxed until the bell, then I rev him up.

My horse is more spooky than hot. If I feel him getting worried about something, like the judge’s stand or something outside the ring, I actually avoid it while going around the perimeter, because once he’s up, it’s hard to get him back. I won’t go all the way past the judges stand or I keep him on the opposite side of the ring as the scary banner. It seems to work for us because when I do rev him up, the contact and the fact he has to do movements are there to keep him paying attention to his job. This plan also keeps him from getting too tired before we trot up centerline.

[netg]

For my TB, uneventful canter was the only thing which would calm him. He would get super tight in his long muscles along his back, and it would curl his haunches one way. So canter would be the other way until that tightness was worked out of his back. At his worst, warmup was canter half pass across the diagonal, half pirouette, canter half pass across the diagonal. Once he was loose enough, the kind of forward and loose canter you’d want on a jump course helped loosen his body up more. For him it was just all about loosening the tight muscles.

For my hot mare, walking and letting her take everything in until she was sure there was nothing to worry about was key. Early on I would schedule 30 minutes of walking before she was mentally ready to actually ride. Once she was mentally ready, it was just ride like normal. Over time she got better where I didn’t need that. My gelding didn’t get better, and we chose against showing him out of concern he would cause someone else problems.

[J-Lu]

Ha! I think in the long run the chaos really helped my horse when he was a spastic younger horse.

The woman who gave out ribbons really worked with us to eventually hand me a ribbon from the ground. The ground crew and judge was pretty cool when my horse wouldn’t go through the red gate (newly painted, it wasn’t as red at previous shows). A competitor came over to help lead my horse through the gate (fellow competitors were really helpful, mostly). That was the show when I entered “English Pleasure” and at the lineup, the judge said “That didn’t seem very Pleasurable” in a very nice and supportive way. I have to say that everyone was really supportive of my spastic horse and me. The woman with the pony and cart and the other woman with the donkeys let my horse come up multiple times and deeply smell them. That settled my horse over time. My horse became friendly with the pony (who was a therapy pony and didn’t care about much). He got used to the loudspeakers and buzzing and tolerated all sorts of weird distractions. Mostly. My horse was great when he was great and spastic when he wasn’t.

I earned a Belt Buckle in English Halter and Go As You Please! Hahahahahaha! How many dressage riders have earned a Championship Belt Buckle! Oh Lordie, that was one of my favorite accomplishments in my life- we worked so hard to appear normal in the arena with QHs, carts, and donkeys.