How often do you gallop your horse?

JadeyB

JadeyB

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Hi,

It's maybe a strange question but i'm just interested to know what other people think/do :) I only used to gallop my boy when I could feel that he needed to 'let off some steam' but I felt that if we did it regularly it'd blow his mind a bit, however I know some people who do it weekly! Is it a personal preference or down to the breed/personality of the horse?

Thanks
 
Depends on the horse. I personally never really bothered, they have a field for that!

The odd gallop in a dry field in summer is all they got so maybe twice a year!
 
As a teenager I would gallop on every ride, so most days.

I ride a friends pony now who is nothing short of bone idle so I would be lucky to get faster than a sedate canter ;)
 
We include a gallop once or twice a week a the end of the horses fast work/interval training - probably not flat out, maybe 3/4 speed.

It never whizzes them up, wish it would :)
 
My ex racer would get a bit tetchy if he couldn't have a blow out once every couple of weeks. It just kept him sane and we both enjoyed it :)
 
Depends on the horse you have and the facilties you have to ride on.

Old bone idle tb could go like poop of a shovel, then settle back down to walk happily.

Current horse would not be so sensible and would be a liability on the rest of the hack
 
I try once a month, I go to the beach. For me it is important to open his airways, mobilise the ribs and just to bowl along in one speed with no turns or transitions.

I don't expect or like to see my horse galloping in his field - it trashes the field and the ground is usually too wet or too hard (we are on clay)!
 
Not very often any more.

Little horse is a bit random and explosive.

Big horse is a bit older, and no longer seems to benefit from proper galloping. It used to keep him fit, and loose and supple, and be great for keeping him mobile (get fab medium trots on gallops after galloping), but now it tires him, and he moves less well for a few days after in school.

Big horse needs to hack lots to keep fit and mobile, and letting off a bit of steam up a hill / forwards canter okay.

And I think we do slow gallop out hacking sometimes.

But I no longer hire gallops and gallop properly flat out, as little horse needs a safe companion, and big horse doesn’t benefit from galloping any more.

I think if your horse is sound, fit, and safe, and you are safe as a rider in gallop, galloping on a good surface a few times a month, is really beneficial cross training for horses.

Some horses do need to be taught to gallop sensibly, and carry themselves sensibily. I had to teach my dressage horse to carry his own head in gallop!

My vet says hacking / hills / forward work / galloping on good ground, all a great form of cross training, and helping to prevent repetitive strain injury from schooling on a surface.
 
I used to take Dylan out for a blast every couple of months.

I've had Jazz for two and a half years and never actually been anywhere that I could have opened him up so haven't galloped him at all yet.
 
I gallop every time I hack out as long as the ground is favourable. Because my ponies are used to this, they'll happily pull up from gallop and then slop about on a long rein for the rest of the ride. We Are lucky to have good open mountain tracks nearby.
 
Thanks! I'm not a big fan of 'fast' anymore, which was fine with my big Warmblood, we only galloped on sponsored rides and occasionally elsewhere if he needed a 'change of season' blast but the TB I'm sharing gallops very regularly with his owner. The only tricky part of this for me is that it makes a relaxing hack pretty impossible because he insists we should be going at warp speed everywhere! hee hee!
 
Never. The few times my horse did properly gallop (out in a big group, got away from me) it blew his mind and he chucked me off. Considering that, we don't do galloping anymore. We canter on every hack, and if in the right company and horse feels relaxed, we will open it up a bit more, but the moment I feel him bunch up under me, tense and flatten I'll bring him back to a more controlled pace.
Maybe he's an odd case, but it seems to me that running really fast throws some sort of mental switch in him, and he goes into fear/flight mode all of a sudden, becomes completely unresponsive and just wants to get the tiger off his back. I don't actually think he enjoys that state of mind, so I don't think he sees not galloping as a loss (or at least I hope not).
 
Gallop quickly? Once a year - his first time after a winter in, he's a right idiot. I can't hold onto him and he gets worse if I try, so we pick good ground with no-one about and let him go. He's not overly fit at that point so once he's got it out of his system we can stop :D

Generally, we don't in the winter due to the ground, but gallop at 3/4 speed at least once a week over the eventing season.
 
Very rarely ever- just don't have the ground for it. Can you gallop a horse properly even for a few strides in a large school or would that be impossible/inadvisable?
 
We canter all the time. Whether or not this progresses to a full gallop depends on the mood of the ride. I would say roughly half the time we ride there is a 'proper hoon'.
We are very lucky in having ponies that will pull up easily from flat gallop, and walk on quietly on a loose rein.
 
Once we had gained confidence in open fields....more often than not! Ground conditions dependant of course. He was such great fun and he would always come straight back to me when asked.
 
Depends on horse and discipline!

For my dressage horse I'd make sure I factored in a 'jolly' hack once a week where we would have a decent canter provided the ground was good.

During spells of more intense training/competition Id box her to the all weather gallops for a decent session approx every 3 weeks
 
I gallop every ride usually.( Depending on the state of the path im using). I like it to be a regular thing so it isn't a big deal to my pony.
 
I wouldn't say I gallop my horse but sometimes he gallops me :)

Sometimes we do a fast canter, when he is trying to keep up with my sister's horse who canters extremely fast - this is more or less a gallop for us, but a TB would leave us standing!
 
JadeyB said:
Hi,

It's maybe a strange question but i'm just interested to know what other people think/do :) I only used to gallop my boy when I could feel that he needed to 'let off some steam' but I felt that if we did it regularly it'd blow his mind a bit, however I know some people who do it weekly! Is it a personal preference or down to the breed/personality of the horse?

Thanks
Click to expand...

I have not galloped my new mare yet since I brought her in Aug last year. I wont gallop her yet till she is schooled and more balanced, there is no rush IMO as she is just turning 6
 
We are lucky in that we have grass tracks with some great places for galloping when the ground's just right. When the ground is suitable we enjoy a good gallop whenever we can. Sam enjoys it as much as me :)
 
As an exracer retrained for dressage... I have to be picky. The gallops or the beach. It's taken me ages to get him vaguely sensible out hacking.

At some of the bigger shows we go to it involves walking on grass over to the arenas, I don't want to undo all our hard work by risking him thinking he's out for a blast.

He prefers to know his, job, so I keep his job and his fun time separate. He wears different tack to help differentiate the two.

He does hacking and jumping and cantering on tracks and in the field, so plenty of variety, but is a stressy little dude so I don't want to make his main job (mentally) hard for him.
 
Depends on horse/our relationship/facilities. From a couple of times a week with one who looked it/I trusted I knew/where there were relatively safe fields to never with one who wasn't into speed/I never really gelled with/on a yard with more room add based hacking. Having said that the last one did gallop a bit when hunting with another rider. I'm a sharer and don't think I've ever shared a horse that didn't get to gallop relatively regularly when ridden, just not always with me. I'm probably ignorant in saying this but I don't (any more) think of it as a hugely different pace, I find a trot-canter transition more of a mental leap once I trust a horse, and probably to start with too (because I've never galloped anything unknown except for riding school ponies and horses which is a bit different)
 
Not on this one. He doesn't know how to properly gallop at the moment - we simply manage a very fast canter. However, until I can be really sure I have sorted out the brakes I am not overly worried. He has an excellent XC canter and a big stride so we are fine going XC, but I know he hasn't found his 5th gear yet. Lots of people think they are galloping and then go alongside a horse who knows his job and can go..previous horse was literally left standing first time we tried this! and he was desperate to catch up. Took about 5 lessons before he learnt to really lower and push from behind!
 
Whenever I fancy it, we have the downs right next to us luckily so there are many places to go for a blast. By Jake will either slop along, or go flat out if I ask for it. And he always pulls up and then chills out so it's all good.

I do it because it's fun and he seems to enjoy it.
 
When I go to the fields. He knows they equal galloping! So hardly at all in the winter though I used to go when there were other liveries at the yard who'd hack out
We go in the summer provided the ground isn't rock hard as his legs are a bit fragile now he's older, usually every other week once a week. Can't wait to get down there this season but it seems to rain the day before each time!

It doesn't fire him up at all wish it did! Also wish he would box so we could access gallops in the winter.

There Is no better feeling imo than going for a good gallop and just letting them go.
 
Just to add - we canter on hacks fairly regularly. Jazz has a smashing canter rhythm and it's actually difficult to get him to go any faster than his normal working canter, even in a field!
 
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