I have a few riders who have their own horses, and a few who are riding my school horses that will one day soon be in a place to begin a ride with a proper warm up. For this article lets assume we are talking about a horse that has enough training and experience to be obedient and safe at the walk and trot in his normal working environment.
The warm up phase of the ride should take care of two very important things; 1. physically preparing the horse for work by having him stretch and start gentle movement and 2. mentally preparing the horse for that session’s work. We can call this getting the horse ‘unconstrained’.
Unconstrained – A horse being physically relaxed and supple while mentally being willing and content.
The definition of a horse being ‘unconstrained’ can and should change over time. This depending on the horses current training and fitness level, and of course his personality. What may be a wonderful level of ‘unconstrained’ for one horse may not be sufficient in another horse.
At the very beginning I like to start my horse in a walk on a long rein. I spend a few moments assessing the horse and what he is naturally offering me to see if he is behaving and moving ‘normally’ or if it is any better or worse than the last time I rode him. Spending a few moments giving the very minimal of aids gives me the opportunity to receive information. Basically I’d like to have their necks level, nose slightly out in front of the vertical, and at the least a walk with a steady regular tempo with out much aiding from the rider (or handler). I want the horse to know that right now I’m not going to ask for much except basic polite behavior and a general sense of willingness to be in the arena with me.
From here I will begin asking the horse to do basic things, like change the tempo of the walk, change directions and halt. Getting the horse to start getting physically warmed up and to ask the horse to start accepting my aids (requests) with a quiet mind.
After this I will move on to trot work. Most riding disciplines acknowledge that the trot is a wonderful gait for serious warming up. It’s steady two beat pace has advantages over walk and canter. Unlike canter (lope) trot is a symmetrical gait where the horse is doing even things on the left and the right side of his body. While the walk is also symmetrical it has no moment of suspension like the trot does.
For an inexperienced horse and rider the majority of a session can be spent achieving a good state of ‘unconstrained’, so the visual examples and the descriptions are meant to show you the end result goals. I wanted to plant the idea in your mind of a quiet, unconstrained horse in a trot warm up so you have something to work towards.
It was very hard to find videos of horses doing ‘long and low’ in trot. In this first video the horse is staying consistent and though he is moving forward in a big trot he is steady and gives the impression of being calm, content and having his mind engaged in his practice. The rider appears to be riding to simply maintain the status quo (though the video is poor we don’t see obvious uses of the riders aids or any sudden changes of plans).
This video is also interesting. There is a lot of controversy around this rider and the method that she uses (Low, Deep and Round, or Rollkur). I’m not at all interested in LDR/Rollkur, I don’t believe in the maintained posture. However the ideas of the horse learning to be submissive, tempo control and the like are important. Extract the useful and disregard the rest.
The warm up is quick for the sake of the presentation but notice how he has a level to low stretched neck, that he moves willingly and efficiently (staying very consistent not doing any more or any less than what is being asked of him).
Here is another video of long & low trot work leading into the work phase. Though the horse is trotting forward the horse looks very content, lost in the thoughts of his rider. Very Zen like. Very efficient looking.
A western version (note that the horse is moving forward based on his breed type and conformation).
Here is a video of a young horse using trotting poles to work out physical and mental tension encourage stretching ‘long and low’. This horse is not quite in the mode of ‘unconstrained’ so the trainer has decided to use cavaletti (work over poles) to put the horse slightly out of her comfort zone in the hopes that she’ll eventually release and relax.
This horse is going around quietly but is not stretching (probably just because he isn’t being asked to) or moving fluidly forward. I’m only showing this video as an example of a ‘neutral’ trot that does not show long and low or a fluid trot, not trying to say the horse is moving faulty.
This video is the total opposite of ‘unconstrained’ in trot work, this horse does move faulty. His neck is up and almost inverted, his back is down and hollow, and his strides are not regular or fluid. Trotting around like this, for the length of time as all the other videos above, would give you the impression of the horse being fatigued at the end and not warmed up and ready for actual work.