Preparing to Train at Home
Your daily training process should differ from your horseshow routine. Brad Barkemeyer explains why you should focus on fundamentals at home, and then walks you through his cow horse warm up.
When you’re riding at home, you want to focus more on your horse’s overall riding foundation and fundamentals, and less on putting the whole package together, like you might do at a horse show. By limiting the amount of information you’re giving your horse each session and focusing on fundamentals, you’re going to keep your horse fresh, happy, and liking his job.
I’m going to walk you through the steps I go through to warm up one of my cow horses at home and why it’s important that I reinforce those riding fundamentals before trying to work a live cow.
Warm Up Right
When it comes time to ride, you don’t just cinch up your horse, get on, and go to work. There’s some prep that needs to take place, so your horse and you are mentally and physically ready to get to work.
Spend some time trotting and loping around the arena on a loose rein to help your horse get comfortable with his surroundings and warm up his muscles. This is going to help him be prepared to learn. Each warmup varies. If you ride daily, it might be shorter than if you were getting on a horse that hasn’t been ridden in a few days or weeks. If you’re not able to ride every day, that warm up becomes even more critical.