Winter Riding

[beowulf]

@dresssagediva

hi, fellow dressage rider here and Finnish person. in Finland it is on average about -20F (give or take) on a regular basis all winter long so i feel qualified enough to comment.

Do you mean -20C? Either way, cold, but I could not imagine living somewhere that it was average -20F in winter.

I generally won’t play if it’s in single digits (Fahrenheit), so I’ll scratch Finland off of my list of potential places to relocate when I’m rich and old AF.

[J-Lu]

Don’t you find breathing hard for you and your horse? I lived in a place that got very cold (not as cold as where you live) and I found that riding in an indoor with temps under 23 degrees F made it hard for me to breathe and I assumed difficult for my horse to breathe. No matter how well dressed I was, my temp cut-off was determined on my inability to breathe and my assumed difficulty for my horse to breathe (my horse did suggest that breathing at low temps was unpleasant).

[RedHorses]

23F is -5C which is considered quite warm by local winter standards. I will ride outdoors in -15C/5F as long as it’s not too windy. Wind chill makes a big difference.

I will have an indoor this winter for the first time in a few years and will probably be riding down to easily -20C/-4F. This won’t be a full on WTC work like in warm temperatures. The TC are shorter bursts, but the real trick is staying warm enough long enough to warm the horse up enough to trot. I find trot really warms me up.

All that said, we do, horse and human, have to adjust to the colder temperatures. In November -5C is brrr! cold for us humans. Horses don’t have to expend any additional energy to keep warm until it gets below -10C but they do need a couple of weeks to adjust. By January -5C is a nice warm day.