Questions about exercise sheets

Keith_Beef

Keith_Beef

Novice equestrian, accomplished equichetrian
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Prompted by an event in a Sunday morning lesson in late December...

We'd led our horses into the covered manège and just mounted up and were walking the horses around to get them limbered up. The instructor asked if any of us had got exercise sheets to put on them.

I asked where these would be kept... in the tack room? In the office?

"No, you bring your own."

"Really?"

"Look, what do you do when you feel cold and don't have a coat to put on?"

"Move around to keep warm."

"Right, and if the horse feels too cold, it'll do the same... maybe move around a bit more than you'd like."

He's implying that if we don't buy exercise sheets and put them on the horses in cold weather, they'll jump around and buck us off.

I thought this a bit odd for a few reasons.

  1. I can understand that a horse that is going to be walking for most of the time on a cold, possibly windy and damp or rainy day, might feel cold or get a chill. But in the covered manège, after standing in its box for hours wearing a rug, being asked to walk quickly, then trot to warm up: will it feel the need to generate more heat to the point of being difficult to ride?

  2. It doesn't seem good hygiene to be swapping an exercise sheet between horses. As soon as one gets a skin problem, won't it be passed to the others? My daughter used to ride at a place where each horse had a bucket (marked with its name) in the tack room containing brushes and a hoof pick, and hygiene was given as the reason for this.

  3. We riders already buy our own brushes, tendon and fetlock boots, head collars and lead ropes. An exercise sheet isn't going to break the bank (Decathlon sells them for £18, or €20), but it's yet another thing to carry up there, store back at home, and maybe even wash from time to time.

If I get one, I'll probably get a high-viz sheet, for when I'm out on longer rides with Anna (we can sometimes be out at 21h on the road leading to our stop-off for the night).

What are your thoughts on exercise sheets?
 
Aside from anything else I think its bonkers that riding school clients are expected to provide equipment for the horses.
I don't generally use exercise sheets unless it's very cold and the horse is clipped out.
They can be very valuable for horses with muscle disorders.
 
Agree MP. My mum used to have riding lessons in France and was never expected to bring her own kit.

I just own a hi viz quarter sheet for my own horse. I don’t clip his quarters.
 
Well horses can get the sillys in the cold, but it's not my main reason for using an exercise sheet. I use them quite a lot because I have one horse with a muscle condition and another who is a bit sensitive and precious (plus I'd prefer not to turn her out completely sopping wet under her rug).

It really is nuts that you have to provide equipment for the horses though, particularly if the riding school are telling you what needs to be provided.
 
I wouldn't expect to provide my own for a RS horse but I do use one in cold weather for both hacking and schooling. I've not had a horse with a muscle problem but just as I like to keep a layer on when I exercise until I have warmed up, I like to give my clipped out horse the chance to warm up before exposing her to the cold as I think she's less likely to be tight but it will come off once we have got going in the school.
 
I only use them on fully clipped horses for warming up if the have come from a period of time in the stable and for cooli g down and then only if it is a bitterly cold day.
I would not buy one to use at a riding school.
 
I find it strange for a RS to request that riders buy any equipment for the horses. They should provide all horse equipment.

I use a wool exercise sheet in the winter, but it is on my own horse.
 
Keith_Beef said:


  2. We riders already buy our own brushes, tendon and fetlock boots, head collars and lead ropes. An exercise sheet isn't going to break the bank (Decathlon sells them for £18, or €20), but it's yet another thing to carry up there, store back at home, and maybe even wash from time to time.


What are your thoughts on exercise sheets?
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i always use exercise sheets in winter, wouldn't think of not doing. As for buying them why do you have to buy tendon boots etc? are these horses owned by the RS or by yourselves. Buying tendon and fetlock boots doesn't make sense. What if you swap horses do you need a new set in a different size? Most RS supply everything you have listed so I suspect this is not what in the UK we would class as a normal RS.
 
paddy555 said:
i always use exercise sheets in winter, wouldn't think of not doing. As for buying them why do you have to buy tendon boots etc? are these horses owned by the RS or by yourselves. Buying tendon and fetlock boots doesn't make sense. What if you swap horses do you need a new set in a different size? Most RS supply everything you have listed so I suspect this is not what in the UK we would class as a normal RS.
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The horses belong to the RS; those that I ride are all about the same size, so one set fits them all. I have another set that I used for bigger horses, but those are no longer at the yard.

I don't know if "normal" even exists, these days. Where I ride is maybe a bit odd, in that it belongs to the town, and management is contracted out to a company. The contract comes up for renewal periodically (I think every three years). When I first started, I had no experience of riding schools, so it didn't seem odd to me to have to bring brushes, head collar and lead rope. When the instructor gave us our first jumping lesson (under the first management team, back in 2013), she told us we should put on tendon and fetlock boots. When we looked for them, we found that there were none in the tack room (not exactly true, there were about six half-pairs of each). "They have a habit of going missing, so we don't provide them any more"...
 
I use exercise sheets when my tb is clipped atm as he is sensitive and feels the cold; when it's raining even when not clipped as apparently his bottom will melt in the rain and for hi viz out hacking.

Does seem odd at a riding school but things are done differently in different places. However for these sort of things I am a big believer in what suits different horses and different situations. I don't usually jump in boots apart from XC and competitions. So I would expect a riding school to decide which horses need what in the same way they might have different bits etc. An exercise sheet is reasonably forgiving fit wise but the boots from my other 16 2 tb didn't fit the new one and there is a danger of rubs or slipping.
 
I use exercise sheets when the horses are freshly clipped or on a cooler day when we are just going for a walking hack, for instance.
It does seem odd that a riding school would expect you to provide your own for their horses though.
 
In all my years riding at riding schools (over 25) I have never been asked to provide boots or similar equipment for the horses. They tend not to have much in the way of extras but what the horse needs is provided.

I have needed my own grooming kit if I am doing things like competing or for own a pony daus etc as there often aren't enough full sets. The school normally have enough of the basics for staff to get ponies ready to ride.

My OH used to take his own stirrup leathers as he often found school ones weren't long enough for him.

We never needed exercise sheets, if it was cold we got moving quickly and didn't hang around for the horses to get cold.
 
Kat said:
My OH used to take his own stirrup leathers as he often found school ones weren't long enough for him.
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I got a piece of leather to make my own stirrup leathers, and then my daughter gave me a pair of leathers and irons for a present before I had time to make them up...

This was because I'd been complaining about mismatched leathers and having to spend time adjusting them from midget length to my length each lesson.

Many of the saddles where I ride have odd stirrup leathers... I used to joke about having to take up half a hole on one side.
 
Not sure how bringing your own equipment would work insurance wise? What if your equipment causes injury to the horse or a person?
 
Kaylum said:
Not sure how bringing your own equipment would work insurance wise? What if your equipment causes injury to the horse or a person?
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I wouldn't worry about that here in France.

There is a general principle in French law that a specialist in a domain (here, the riding school instructor) has a "duty to advise" a non-specialist (me) in what is safe or proper. It would be quite difficult for the riding school to demonstrate that I was responsible for any kind of loss or injury that occurred in the course of a lesson.
 
I tend to use a hi vis mesh sheet for hacking on unclipped horses. I use fleece ones if the horse is recently clipped and / or it's especially cold, and I use one if it's even moderately cold on one horse because he's precious. I occasionally use them at season change times if I think the weather might be contributing to silly behaviour.

However, it's nuts to buy one for random RS horses who should have their own equipment - partly because it's the RS's responsibility to provide things for their own horses, and partly because it's really bad biosecurity to switch them between horses without washing.
 
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I have heard of and visited "Riding Clubs" in France, where the horses are owned by the club and riders/members come to ride/compete them. (As opposed to here where we take our own horses to a RC event). May be you are at a similar establishment KB ? In which case I can see that having your own equipment might be required/the norm.
 
I am not surprised. I have been to several riding schools over here where they are surprised you don't have your own saddle and struggle to find one for you ... Certainly all of them have expected us to provide grooming stuff and saddlecloths.

It's madness. I don't think the exercise sheet thing ever came up though - I think I just did without until I got my own horse!
 
JGC said:
I am not surprised. I have been to several riding schools over here where they are surprised you don't have your own saddle and struggle to find one for you ... Certainly all of them have expected us to provide grooming stuff and saddlecloths.

It's madness. I don't think the exercise sheet thing ever came up though - I think I just did without until I got my own horse!
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Where I ride provides the saddle cloth, and this should be the case for everywhere here in town: there is a by-law that requires horses to wear a saddle cloth or other piece of tack that identifies either the owner or the yard, so that if it gets loose a responsible person can be contacted. Both my daughter and I have each caught a loose horse in the street by our house.

Many of the younger girls (between 8 and 13 years old) bring their own saddle cloths or numnahs with matchy-matchy fly-hats and ribbons to plait into the horses' tails... I suppose those are the ones who really want a horse but their parents won't buy one. My daughter got a mild case of that for a couple of years, but then went off riding altogether.
 
I would use one for a warm up but she bucks and messes around more when I take it off - so a few cold bucks are easier to sit to than spooky bucks - you need to pick your battles I guess. If for a hack or heavy rain on a clipped horses then yes maybe but I wouldn't recommend riding in that heavy rain anyway.
 
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