Ideas for young horse routines when we can’t hack

[flippa_t]

What do people do with their young horses (5yrs, rising 6) when you don’t have hacking.

All summer we hacked several times a week (in addition to schooling, poles, groundwork etc), but since we lost the light this has been reduced to weekends and sometimes less due to the various UK storms that seem to keep hitting us at weekends.

And when the weather is bad / fields are boggy we lose our hacking completely (unless we hack up a fast bendy road which I’m not prepared to do).

So I’m hoping for inspiration of things to do / weekly routines that add variety and don’t feel like you’re schooling every day even when you’re confined to the school.

Thanks

 

[ihatework]

If I didn’t have on site hacking I’d probably make every effort to box off site for safe hacking at least once a week.

Aside from that, what are your current training holes/focus as that would be helpful to know for shaping arena work.

 

[FitzyFitz]

Box out if at all possible, then at home, how about creating some trec style obstacles in the arena? Gives you something different to think about and can be good for refining movements like sidepass, rein back and turn on forehand/haunches as you'll have to do a lot of that sort of thing for many of them!

 

[flippa_t]

That’s a good idea and a good alternative to pole work. I try to make polework as interesting as possible with shapes etc rather than just lines of poles, but other obstacles is a nice idea.

 

[Orangehorse]

Trec training is great fun. It is schooling without the schooling. Have to back straight between two poles, or do S bends without touching a pole. Bending poles. Walk as fast as possible and canter as slow as possible. Teach them to stand still for 10 seconds, no hand signals. Learn to go underneath a pole (bamboo) on top of a jump stand - "I can't jump that!" was my horse's reaction and it took 3 days before he would even go near it. We got it eventually and in the competition I could almost hear him say "Oh, yes I know what to do here." (And I heard of another horse who on seeing the pole on top of the jump stands, thought it was a jump "OH, yes, I'll give that a go!")

 

[lme]

I tend to schedule a winter holiday

 

[Sanversera]

Horse agility type things

 

[Sanversera]

Grooming?

 

[I'm Dun]

"hack" in the school with a friend? You basically just tootle round the school side by side, same as if you were hacking. Obviously its not the same, but its fun for the horses and riders.

 

[Walrus]

I'm doing groundwork once or twice a week to keep our number of schooling sessions down. Both in-hand polework but also postural stuff - the "No back no horse" Facebook group has some good basic groundwork exercises and patterns and Kelly De Geus on Instagram posts some useful stuff, i just downloaded a basics type 20 minute webinar for less than £2 to get some hints on basic technique. My horse is new so we are just practising different stuff, the other day we practised standing at the portable steps we take to get on a competitions, i just put them in different areas of the school and practised parking at them and standing still.