Riding during the winter

[millyspaniel]

My horses are kept out 24/7 so this means when the weathers really bad i cant ride as theres nowhere i can bring them in to tack up and stuff so normally dont bother.
This week its been cold but dry but i havent been able to ride since friday

my little girls got swine flu so ive not been able to ride my horse or poo-pick, just out the car feed them and leave hay and go! no-one to look after her only her great nan and i dernt ask her as i would hate for her to get the swine flu

Hoping to ride friday if shes better and i can leave her with her nan.
Definitly riding on saturday morning, going to re-try my home made x country jumps, tried them last week and they where really good, my youngster loved them! she was jumping them like they where 5ft not 2ft, so have popped them up to 3 - 4 ft.
How often do you ride in the winter?

 

[posie_honey]

mine lives out 24/7 too... but i have a stable i can use to tack her up in - then use a waterproof exersise rug. last year though i didn't have anything - just a field - and i'd tack up under her HW combo lol!! then whip it off and exersise rug on and off we'd go

i just ride as usual when i can after work (ie good moonlight

) but if really dark i wont... or i put my truck lights on and school or lunge in them...

last night i rode for an hour in the dark doing canter work in the stubble fields as it was quite a light night

 

[JosieSmith]

We're lucky and our school is floodlit, but we don't tend to get much constructive work done as mine's really spooky in the dark and the school gets quite boggy so she spends more time spooking at shadows outside the school and trying to jump over/avoid the boggy bits than listening to me! I try to ride twice during the week and get some long hacks in saturday and sunday. Make the most of the weekend.

 

[Hullabaloo]

My horse is in at night so I ride or lunge before work. I know if I left it until after I'd have lost the will to do it. I try to do 2, preferable 3 days in the week plus lessons / hacking at the weekends.

 

[Sessie]

I'm feeling guilty for the lack of things i am doing with Taffy at the moment. I work 12 hr shifts so have 4 days free. But if it's tipping it down we don't do anything. So recently he's being ridden twice a week which is no good for a 7 yr old.

We don't have a school and the fields are muddy, so cant ride or lunge there. He doesn't hack out alone, so have to wait for whenever my friend is riding or have a lesson.

 

[Lollii]

I don't do very much with my horses in the winter, I have stopped beating myself up over it and ride whenever I feel like it now.

I don't work & have my horses at home but I hate riding on my own and we have no off road hacking so I just wait till someone else is going out when they have a day off work or the weekends - usually to the beach or we go hunting for an hour or so.

 

[simplyhunting]

Mine are kept out 24/7 too... but with the evenings so dark i cant ride in the evenings anymore so unfortunatly the horsies get a touch neglected too...
but they seem happy just simply going out on the weekend either hacking/hunting or competing the odd time.... with maybe the odd day in the week ( only have hacking facilities :S but the hacks definately make up for not having a school, we have some rather awesome places to ride

) although im not sure the my lad appreciates it as he tries to dissapear with me across the downs oops brakes? or attempt to ditch me somewhere :/ not appreciate by me of course! haha all good fun though

 

[JenTaz]

my two live in overnight so the both get ridden in the outdoor school at night or we go for a little hack thank god for head torches thankfully i dont really have any one else in the equation that cant look after them selves just have to let mum know when to pick me up and drop me off after ive been to college

 

[Pedantic]

Depending which field we are in I either take him to stables and groom/tack up and ride from there, or if at farther fields drive up and work out of back of Terrano, it's my mobile tack and feed room, anyone on here knows me, know I hack out in the dark anyway so winter doesn't really stop me riding.